LOYE,  THE 
FIDDLER 


LLOYD 
C&BOURHE 


i 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 


LOVE, 
THE    FIDDLER 

BY  LLOYD  OSBOURNE 


New  York:   McClure,  Phillips 
Company 
Mcmiii 


Copyright,   1903,   by 
McCLURE,    PHILLIPS   &   CO. 

Published,   September,    1903 


v* 


,^. 
tf^^" 

3       LEWIS  VANUXEM 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  CHIEF  ENGINEER, 3 

FFRENCHES    FlRST, 93 

THE  GOLDEN  CASTAWAYS, 139 

THE  AWAKENING  OF  GEORGE  RAYMOND,       .        .        .  175 

THE  MASCOT  OF  BATTERY  B,         .....  247 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINE  ER 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 
I 

FRANK  Rignold  had  never  been  the 
favoured  suitor,  not  at  least  so  far  as 
anything  definite  was  concerned ;  but  he 
had  always  been  welcome  at  the  little  house  on 
Commonwealth  Street,  and  amongst  the  neigh- 
bours his  name  and  that  of  Florence  Fenacre 
were  coupled  as  a  matter  of  course  and  every  old 
lady  within  a  radius  of  three  miles  regarded  the 
match  as  good  as  settled.  It  was  not  Frank's 
fault  that  it  was  not,  for  he  was  deeply  in  love 
with  the  widow's  daughter  and  looked  forward 
to  such  an  end  to  their  acquaintance  as  the  very 
dearest  thing  fate  could  give  him.  But  in  these 
affairs  it  is  necessary  to  carry  the  lady  with  you 
— and  the  lady,  though  she  had  never  said 
"  no,"  had  not  yet  been  prevailed  upon  to  say 

[3] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

"  yes."  In  fact  she  preferred  to  leave  the 
matter  as  it  was,  and  boldly  forestalling  a  set 
proposal,  had  managed  to  convey  to  Frank 
Rignold  that  it  was  her  wish  he  should  not 
make  one. 

"  Let  us  be  good  friends,"  she  would  say, 
"  and  as  for  anything  else,  Frank,  there's 
plenty  of  time  to  consider  that  by  and  by. 
Isn't  it  enough  already  that  we  like  each 
other?" 

Frank  did  not  think  it  was  enough,  but  he  was 
not  without  intuition  and  willing  to  accept  the 
little  offered  him  and  be  grateful — rather  than 
risk  all,  and  almost  certainly  lose  all,  by  too 
exigent  a  suit.  For  Florence  Fenacre  was  the 
acknowledged  beauty  of  the  town,  with  a  dozen 
eligible  men  at  her  feet,  and  was  more  courted 
and  sought  after  than  any  girl  in  the  place. 
The  place,  to  give  it  its  name,  was  Bridgeport, 
one  of  those  dead-alive  little  ports  on  the  Atlan- 
tic seaboard,  with  a  dozen  factories  and  some 

[4] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

decaying  wharves  and  that  tranquil  air  of  having 
had  a  past. 

The  widow  and  her  pretty  daughter  lived  in 
a  low-roofed,  red-brick  house  that  faced  the 
street  and  sheltered  a  long  deep  shady  garden 
in  the  rear.  Land  and  house  had  been  bought 
with  whale  oil.  Their  little  income,  derived 
from  the  rent  of  three  barren  and  stony  farms 
and  amounting  to  not  more  than  sixty  dollars  a 
month,  represented  a  capitalisation  of  whale  oil. 
Even  the  old  grey  church  whither  they  went 
twice  of  a  Sunday,  was  whale  oil  too,  and  had 
been  built  in  bygone  days  by  the  sturdy  captains 
who  now  lay  all  around  it  under  slabs  of  stone. 
There  amongst  them  was  Florence's  father  and 
her  grandfather  and  her  great-grandfather,  to- 
gether with  the  Macys  and  the  Coffins  and  the 
Cabotts  with  whom  they  had  sailed  and  quar- 
relled and  loved  and  intermarried  in  the 
years  now  gone.  The  wide  world  had  not  been 
too  wide  for  them  to  sail  it  round  and  reap  the 

[si 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

harvests  of  far-off  seas;  but  in  death  they  lay 
side  by  side,  their  voyages  done,  their  bones 
mingling  in  the  New  England  earth. 

Frank  Rignold  too  was  a  son  of  Bridgeport, 
and  the  sea  which  ran  in  that  blood  for  genera- 
tions bade  him  in  manhood  to  rise  and  follow 
it.  He  had  gone  into  the  engine-room,  and  at 
thirty  was  the  chief  engineer  of  a  cargo  boat 
running  to  South  American  ports.  He  was  a 
fine-looking  man  with  earnest  grey  eyes ;  a  reader, 
a  student,  an  observer;  self-taught  in  Spanish, 
Latin,  and  French;  a  grave,  quiet  gentlemanly 
man,  whose  rare  smile  seemed  to  light  his  whole 
face,  and  who  in  his  voyages  South  had  caught 
something  of  Spanish  grace  and  courtliness. 
He  returned  as  regularly  to  Bridgeport  as  his 
ship  did  to  New  York;  and  when  he  stepped  off 
the  train  his  eager  steps  took  him  first  to  the 
Fenacres'  house,  his  hands  never  empty  of  some 
little  present  for  his  sweetheart. 

On  the  occasion  of  our  story  his  step  was  more 
[6] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

buoyant  than  ever  and  his  heart  beat  high  with 
hope,  for  she  had  cried  the  last  time  he  went 
away,  and  though  no  word  of  love  had  yet  been 
spoken  between  them,  he  was  conscious  of  her 
increasing  inclination  for  him  and  her  increasing 
dependence.  Having  already  won  so  much  it 
seemed  as  though  his  passionate  devotion  could 
not  fail  to  turn  the  scale  and  bring  her  to  that 
admission  he  felt  it  was  on  her  lips  to  make.  So 
he  strode  through  the  narrow  streets,  telling 
himself  a  fairy  story  of  how  it  all  might  be,  with 
a  little  house  of  their  own  and  she  waiting  for 
him  on  the  wharf  when  his  ship  made  fast;  a 
story  that  never  grew  stale  in  the  repetition,  but 
which,  please  God,  would  come  true  in  the  end, 
with  Florence  his  wife,  and  all  his  doubtings  and 
heart-aches  over. 

Florence  opened  the  door  for  him  herself  and 

gave  a  little  cry  of  surprise  and  welcome  as  they 

shook  hands,  for  in  all  their  acquaintance  there 

had  never  been  a  kiss  between  them.     It  was  all 

[7] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

he  could  do  not  to  catch  her  in  his  arms,  for  as 
she  smiled  up  at  him,  so  radiant  and  beautiful 
and  happy,  it  seemed  as  if  it  were  his  right  and 
that  he  had  been  a  fool  to  have  ever  questioned 
her  love  for  him.  He  followed  her  into  the 
sitting-room,  laughing  like  a  child  with  pleasure 
and  thrilled  through  and  through  with  the 
sound  of  her  voice  and  the  touch  of  her  hand  and 
the  vague,  subtle  perfume  of  her  whole  being. 
His  laughter  died  away,  however,  as  he  saw 
what  the  room  contained.  Over  the  chairs, 
over  the  sofa,  over  the  table,  in  the  stacked  and 
open  pasteboard  boxes  on  the  floor,  were  dresses 
and  evening  gowns  outspread  with  the  profusion 
of  a  splendid  shop,  and  even  to  his  unpractised 
eyes,  costly  and  magnificent  beyond  anything  he 
had  ever  seen  before.  Florence  swept  an  opera 
cloak  from  a  chair  and  made  him  sit  down, 
watching  him  the  while  with  a  charming  gaiety 
and  excitement.  At  such  a  moment  it  seemed 
to  him  positively  heartless. 
[8] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

"  Florence,"  he  said,  almost  with  a  gasp, 

"  does  this  mean  that  you  are  going  to  be " 

He  stopped  short.  He  could  not  say  that 
word. 

"  I'm  never  going  to  marry  anybody,1*  she 
returned. 

"  But "  he  began  again. 

"  Then  you  haven't  heard !  "  she  cried,  clasp- 
ing her  hands.  "  Oh,  Frank,  you  haven't 
heard!" 

"  I  have  only  just  got  back,"  he  said. 

"  I've  been  left  heaps  of  money,"  she  ex- 
claimed, "  from  my  uncle,  you  know,  the  one 
that  treated  father  so  badly  and  tricked  him  out 
of  the  old  manor  farm.  I  hardly  knew  he 
existed  till  he  died.  And  it's  not  only  a  lot, 
Frank,  but  it's  millions!  " 

He  repeated  the  word  with  a  kind  of  groan. 

"  They  are  probating  the  will  for  six,"  she 
went  on,  not  noticing  his  agitation,  "  but  I'm 
sure  the  lawyers  are  making  it  as  low  as  they  can 

[9] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

for  the  taxes.  And  it's  the  most  splendid  kind 
of  property — rows  of  houses  in  the  heart  of 
New  York  and  big  Broadway  shops  and  sky- 
scrapers! Frank,  do  you  realise  I  own  two 
office  buildings  twenty  stories  high  ?  " 

Frank  tried  to  congratulate  her  on  her  won- 
derful good  fortune,  but  it  was  like  a  voice  from 
the  grave  and  he  could  not  affect  to  be  glad  at 
the  death-knell  of  all  his  hopes. 

"  That  lets  me  out,"  he  said. 

"  My  poor  Frank,  you  never  were  in,"  she 
said,  regarding  him  with  great  kindness  and 
compassion.  "  I  know  you  are  disappointed, 
but  you  are  too  much  a  man  to  be  unjust 
to  me." 

"  Oh,  I  haven't  the  right  to  say  a  word!  "  he 
exclaimed  quickly.  "  On  your  side  it  was 
friends  and  nothing  more.  I  always  understood 
that,  Florence." 

He  was  shocked  at  her  almost  imperceptible 
sigh  of  relief. 

[10] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

"  Of  course,  this  changes  everything,'*  she 
said. 

"  Yet  it  would  have  come  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
this,"  he  said.  "  You  were  getting  to  like  me 
better  and  better.  You  cried  when  I  last  went 
away.  Yes,  it  would  have  come,  Florence,"  he 
repeated,  looking  at  her  wistfully. 

"  I  suppose  it  would,  Frank,"  she  said. 

"  Oh,  Florence !  "  he  exclaimed,  and  could  not 
go  on  lest  his  voice  should  betray  him. 

"  And  we  should  have  lived  in  a  poky  little 
house,"  she  said,  "  and  you  would  have  been  to 
sea  three-quarters  of  the  time,  leaving  me  to  eat 
my  heart  out  as  mother  did  for  father — and  it 
would  have  been  a  horrible,  dreadful,  irrevoca- 
ble mistake." 

"  I  didn't  have  to  go  to  sea,"  he  said,  snatch- 
ing at  this  crumb  of  hope.  "  There  are  other 
jobs  than  ships.  Why,  only  last  trip  I  was 
offered  a  refrigerating  plant  in  Chicago !  " 

He  did  not  tell  her  it  bore  a  salary  of  four 

cm 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

hundred  dollars  a  month  and  that  he  had  meant 
to  lay  it  at  her  feet  that  morning.  In  the  light 
of  her  millions  that  sum,  so  considerable  an 
hour  before,  had  suddenly  shrunk  to  nothing. 
How  puny  and  pitiful  it  seemed  in  the  contrast. 
He  had  a  sense  that  everything  had  shrunk  to 
nothing — his  life,  his  hopes,  his  future. 

"  I  know  you  think  I  am  cruel,"  she  said,  in 
the  same  calm,  considerate  tone  she  had  used 
throughout.  "  But  I  never  gave  you  any  en- 
couragement, Frank — not  in  the  way  you 
wanted  or  expected.  You  were  the  only  person 
I  knew  who  was  the  least  bit  cultivated  and  nice 
and  travelled  and  out  of  the  commonplace.  I 
can't  tell  you  how  much  you  brightened  my  life 
here,  or  how  glad  I  was  when  you  came  or  how 
sorry  I  was  when  you  went  away — but  it  wasn't 
love,  Frank — not  the  love  you  wished  for  or 
the  love  I  feel  I  have  the  power  to  give." 

"  Why  did  you  let  me  go  on  then?  "  he  broke 
out,  "  I  getting  deeper  and  deeper  into  it  and 

[12] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

you  knowing  all  the  time  it  never  could  come  to 
anything?  Just  because  no  words  were  said,  did 
that  make  you  blind?  If  you  were  such  a 
friend  of  mine  as  you  said  you  were,  wouldn't  it 
have  been  kinder  to  have  shown  me  the  door 
and  tell  me  straight  out  it  was  hopeless  and 
impossible?  Oh,  Florence,  you  took  my  love 
when  you  wanted  it,  like  a  person  getting  warm 
at  a  fire,  and  now  when  you  don't  need  it  any 
longer  you  tell  me  quite  unconcernedly  that  it  is 
all  over  between  us !  " 

"  It  would  sound  so  heartless  to  tell  you  the 
real  truth,  Frank,"  she  said. 

"Oh,  let  me  hear  it!"  he  said.  "  I'm 
desperate  enough  for  anything — even  for  that, 
I  suppose." 

"  I  knew  it  would  end  the  way  you  wanted  it, 
Frank,"  she  said.  "  You  were  getting  to  mean 
more  and  more  to  me.  I  did  not  love  you 
exactly  and  I  did  not  worry  a  particle  when  you 
were  away,  but  I  sort  of  acquiesced  in  what 

[13] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

seemed  to  be  the  inevitable.  I  know  I  am  hor- 
ribly to  blame,  but  I  took  it  for  granted  we'd 
drift  on  and  on — and  this  time,  if  you  had 
asked  me,  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  say  '  yes.'  " 

She  said  this  last  word  in  almost  a  whisper, 
frightened  at  the  sight  of  Frank's  pale  face. 
She  ran  over  to  him,  and  throwing  her  arms 
around  his  neck  kissed  him  again  and  again. 

"  We'll  always  be  friends,  Frank,"  she  said. 
"Always,  always!  " 

He  made  no  movement  to  return  her  caresses. 
Her  kisses  humiliated  him  to  the  quick.  He 
pushed  her  away  from  him,  and  when  he  spoke 
it  was  with  dignity  and  gentleness. 

"  I  was  wrong  to  reproach  you,"  he  said. 
"  I  can  appreciate  what  a  difference  all  this 
money  makes  to  you.  It  has  lifted  you  into 
another  world — a  world  where  I  cannot  hope  to 
follow  you,  but  I  can  be  man  enough  to  say  that 
I  understand — that  I  acquiesce — without  bitter- 


ness." 


[14] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

"  I  never  liked  you  so  well  as  I  do  now, 
Frank,"  she  said. 

"  We  will  say  nothing  more  about  it,"  he  said. 
"  I  couldn't  blame  you  because  you  don't  love 
me,  could  I?  I  ought  rather  instead  to  thank 
you — thank  you  for  so  much  you  have  given  me 
these  two  years  past,  your  friendship,  your  in- 
timacy, your  trust.  That  it  all  came  to  nothing 
was  neither  your  fault  nor  mine.  It  was  your 
uncle's  for  dying  and  leaving  you  sky-scrapers!" 

They  both  laughed  at  this,  and  Frank,  now 
apparently  quite  himself  again,  brought  forth 
his  presents:  a  large  box  of  candy,  a  beautifully 
bound  little  volume  of  Pierre  Loti,  and  a  lace 
collar  he  had  picked  up  at  Buenos  Ayres.  This 
last  seemed  a  trifling  piece  of  finery  in  the  midst 
of  all  those  dresses,  though  he  had  paid  sixteen 
dollars  for  it  and  had  counted  it  cheap  at  the 
price.  Florence  received  it  with  exaggerated 
gratitude,  genuine  enough  in  one  way,  for  she 
was  touched;  but,  in  spite  of  herself,  her  altered 
[15] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

fortunes  and  the  memory  of  those  great  New 
York  shops,  where  she  had  ordered  right  and 
left,  made  the  bit  of  lace  seem  common  and 
scarce  worth  possessing.  Even  as  she  thanked 
him  she  was  mentally  presenting  it  to  one  of 
the  poor  Miss  Browns  who  sang  in  the  church 
choir. 

They  spent  an  hour  in  talking  together,  elud- 
ing on  either  side  any  further  reference  to  the 
subject  most  in  their  thoughts  and  finding 
safety  in  books  and  the  little  gossip  of  the  place 
and  the  news  of  the  day.  It  might  have  been 
an  ordinary  call,  though  Frank,  as  a  special 
favour,  was  allowed  to  smoke  a  cigar,  and  there 
was  a  strained  look  in  Florence's  face  that  gave 
the  lie  to  her  previous  professions  of  indiffer- 
ence. She  knew  she  was  violating  her  own 
heart,  but  her  character  was  already  corrupting 
under  the  breath  of  wealth,  and  her  head  was 
turned  with  dreams  of  social  conquests  and  of  a 
great  and  splendid  match  in  the  roseate  future. 
[16] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

She  kept  telling  herself  how  lucky  it  was  that  the 
money  had  not  come  too  late,  and  wondering  at 
the  same  time  whether  she  would  ever  again 
meet  a  man  who  had  such  a  compelling  charm 
for  her  as  Frank  Rignold,  and  whose  mellow 
voice  could  move  her  to  the  depths.  At  last, 
after  a  decent  interval,  Frank  said  he  would 
have  to  leave,  and  she  accompanied  him  to  the 
door,  where  he  begged  her  to  remember  him  to 
her  mother  and  added  something  congratulatory 
about  the  great  good  fortune  that  had  befallen 
her. 

"  And  now  good-bye,'*  he  said. 

"  But  you  will  come  back,  Frank?  "  she  ex- 
claimed anxiously. 

44  Oh,  no !  "  he  said.  "  I  couldn't,  Florence, 
I  couldn't." 

"  I  cannot  let  you  go  like  this,"  she  protested. 
"  Really  I  can't,  Frank.  I  won't !  " 

"  I  don't  see  very  well  how  you  can  help  it," 
he  said. 

[17] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

"  Surely  my  wish  has  still  some  weight  with 
you,"  she  said. 

"  Florence,"  he  returned,  holding  her  hand 
very  tight,  "  you  must  not  think  it  pique  on  my 
part  or  anything  so  petty  and  unworthy ;  but  I'd 
rather  stop  right  here  than  endure  the  pain  of 
seeing  you  get  more  and  more  indifferent  to  me. 
It  is  bound  to  come,  of  course,  and  it  would  be 
less  cruel  this  way  than  the  other." 

1  You  never  can  have  loved  me!"  she  ex- 
claimed. "  Didn't  I  say  I  wanted  to  be  friends  ? 
Didn't  I  kiss  you?" 

1  Yes,"  he  said  slowly,  "  as  you  might  a  child, 
to  comfort  him  for  a  broken  toy.  Florence," 
he  went  on,  "  I  have  wanted  you  for  the  last  two 
years  and  now  I  have  lost  you.  I  must  face  up 
to  that.  I  must  meet  it  with  what  fortitude  I 
can.  But  I  cannot  bear  to  feel  that  every  time  I 
come  you  will  like  me  less ;  that  others  will  crowd 
me  out  and  take  my  place;  that  the  gulf  will 
widen  and  widen  until  at  last  it  is  impassable.  I 
[18] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

am  going  while  you  still  love  me  a  little  and  will 
miss  me.     Good-bye !  " 

She  leaned  her  head  on  his  shoulder  and 
sobbed.  She  had  but  to  say  one  word  to  keep 
him,  and  yet  she  would  not  say  it.  Her  heart 
seemed  broken  in  her  breast,  and  yet  she  let  him 
go,  sustained  in  her  resolve  by  the  thought  of 
her  great  fortune  and  of  the  wonderful  days  to 
come. 

"  Good-bye,"  she  said,  and  stood  looking  after 
him  as  he  walked  slowly  away. 

"  Oh,  that  money,  I  hate  it !  "  she  exclaimed 
to  herself  as  she  went  in.  "I  wish  he  had  never 
left  it  to  me.  I  didn't  want  it  or  expect  it  or 
anything,  and  I  should  have  been  happy,  oh,  so 
happy !  "  Then,  with  a  pang,  she  recalled  the 
refrigerating  plant,  and  the  life  so  quiet  and 
poor  and  simple  and  sweet  that  she  and  Frank 
would  have  led  had  not  her  millions  come  be- 
tween them. 

"Her  millions!" 

[19] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

It  was  inspiriting  to  repeat  those  two  words 
to  herself.  It  strengthened  her  resolve  and  made 
her  feel  how  wise  she  had  been  to  break  with 
Frank.  Perhaps,  after  all,  it  were  better  for 
him  not  to  come  back.  He  was  right  about  the 
gulf  between  them,  and  even  since  his  departure 
it  was  widening  appreciably. 

Then  she  realised  what  all  rich  people  realise 
sooner  or  later. 

"  I  don't  own  all  that  money,"  she  said  to 
herself.  "  It  owns  me!  "  And  with  that  she 
went  indoors  and  cried  part  of  the  forenoon 
and  spent  the  rest  of  it  in  trying  on  her  new 
clothes. 

Wealth,  if  it  did  not  bring  happiness,  at  least 
brought  some  pleasant  distractions. 

II 

It  was  fully  a  year  before  Frank  saw  her 
again;  a  long  year  to  him,  soberly  passed 
in  his  shipboard  duties,  with  recurring  weeks 

[20] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

ashore  at  New  York  and  Buenos  Ayres.  He 
had  grown  more  reserved  and  silent  than 
before ;  fonder  of  his  books ;  keener  in  his  taste 
for  abstract  science.  He  avoided  his  old  friends 
and  made  no  new  ones.  The  world  seemed  to 
be  passing  him  while  he  stood  still.  He  won- 
dered how  others  could  laugh  when  his  own 
heart  was  so  heavy,  and  he  preferred  to  go  his 
own  way,  solitary  and  unnoticed,  taking  an  in- 
creasing pleasure  in  his  isolation.  He  contin- 
ued to  write  to  Bridgeport,  for  there  were  a  few 
old  friends  whom  he  could  not  disregard  alto- 
gether, though  he  made  his  letters  as  infre- 
quent as  he  could  and  as  short.  In  return  he 
was  kept  informed  of  Florence's  movements;  of 
the  sensation  she  made  everywhere ;  of  the  great 
people  who  had  taken  her  under  their  wing;  of 
her  rumoured  engagements;  of  her  triumphs 
in  Paris  and  London;  of  her  yachts  and 
horses  and  splendour  and  beauty.  His  cor- 
respondents showed  an  artless  pride  in  the  re- 

[21] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

cital.  It  was  becoming  their  only  claim  to  con- 
sideration that  they  knew  Florence  Fenacre. 
Her  dazzling  life  reflected  a  sort  of  glory  upon 
themselves,  and  their  letters  ran  endlessly  on  the 
same  theme.  It  was  all  a  modern  fairy  tale, 
and  they  fairly  bubbled  with  satisfaction  to  think 
that  they  knew  the  fairy  princess ! 

Frank  read  it  all  with  exasperation.  It  tor- 
mented him  to  even  hear  her  name;  to  be  re- 
minded of  her  in  any  way;  to  realise  that  she 
was  as  much  alive  as  he  himself,  and  not  the 
phantom  he  would  have  preferred  to  keep  her 
in  his  memory.  Yet  he  was  inconsistent  enough 
to  rage  when  a  letter  came  that  brought  no  news 
of  her.  He  would  tear  it  into  pieces  and  throw 
it  out  of  his  cabin  window.  The  fools,  why 
couldn't  they  tell  him  what  he  wanted  to  know ! 
He  would  carry  his  ill-humour  into  the  engine- 
room  and  revenge  himself  on  fate  and  the  loss 
of  the  woman  he  loved  by  a  harsh  criticism  of 
his  subordinates.  A  defective  pump  or  a  trou- 

[22] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

blesome  valve  would  set  his  temper  flaming;  and 
then,  overcome  at  his  own  injustice,  he  would  go 
to  the  other  extreme;  and,  roundly  blaming  him- 
self, would  slap  some  sullen  artificer  on  the  back 
and  tell  him  that  it  was  all  a  joke.  His  men, 
amongst  themselves,  called  him  a  wild  cracked 
devil,  and  it  was  the  tattle  of  the  ship  that  he 
drank  hard  in  secret.  They  knew  something 
was  wrong  with  him,  and  fastened  on  the  likeli- 
est cause.  Others  said  out  boldly  that  the  chief 
engineer  was  going  crazy. 

One  morning  as  they  were  running  up  the 
Sound,  homeward-bound,  they  passed  a  large 
steam  yacht  at  anchor.  Frank  happened  to  be 
on  deck  at  the  time,  and  he  joined  with  the  rest 
in  the  little  chorus  of  admiration  that  went  up 
at  the  sight  of  her. 

"  That's  the  Minnehaha"  said  the  second 
mate.  "  She  belongs  to  the  beautiful  heiress, 
Miss  Fenacre !  " 

"  Ready  for  a  Mediterranean  cruise,"  said 
[23] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

the  purser,  who  had  been  reading  one  of  the 
newspapers  the  pilot  had  brought  aboard. 

Frank  heard  these  two  remarks  in  silence. 
The  sun,  to  him,  seemed  to  stop  shining.  The 
morning  that  had  been  so  bright  and  pleasant  all 
at  once  overcame  him  with  disgust.  The  might- 
have-been  took  him  by  the  throat.  He  descended 
into  the  engine-room  to  hide  his  dejected  face  in 
the  heated  oily  atmosphere  below;  and  seating 
himself  on  a  tool-chest  he  watched,  with  hardly 
seeing  eyes,  the  ponderous  movement  of  his 
machinery. 

It  was  the  anodyne  for  his  troubles,  to  feel 
the  vibration  of  the  engines  and  hear  the 
rumble  and  hiss  of  the  jacketed  cylinders.  It 
always  comforted  him;  he  found  companion- 
ship in  the  mighty  thing  he  controlled;  he 
looked  at  the  trembling  needle  in  the  gauge, 
and  instinctively  noted  the  pressure  as  he  thought 
of  the  trim  smart  vessel  at  anchor  and  of  his  dear 
one  on  the  eve  of  parting.  He  wondered 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

svhether  they  would  ever  pass  again,  he  and  she, 
in  all  the  years  to  come. 

The  thought  of  the  yacht  haunted  him  all  that 
day.  He  took  a  sudden  revulsion  against  the 
grinding  routine  of  his  own  life.  It  came  over 
him  like  a  new  discovery,  that  he  was  tired  of 
South  America,  tired  of  his  ship,  tired  of  every- 
thing. He  contrasted  his  own  voyages  in  and 
out,  from  the  same  place  to  the  same  place,  up 
and  down,  up  and  down,  as  regular  as  the  swing 
of  a  pendulum  with  that  gay  wanderer  of  the 
raking  masts  who  was  free  to  roam  the  world. 
It  came  over  him  with  an  insistence  that  he, 
too,  would  like  to  roam  the  world,  and  see 
strange  places  and  old  marble  palaces  with 
steps  descending  into  the  blue  sea  water,  and 
islands  with  precipices  and  beaches  and  palm 
trees. 

Almost  awed  at  his  own  presumption  he  sat 
down  and  wrote  to  Miss  Fenacre. 

It  was  a  short  note,  formally  addressed,  beg- 

[251 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

ging  her  for  a  position  in  the  engine-room  staff. 
He  knew,  he  said,  that  the  quota  was  probably 
made  up,  and  that  he  could  not  hope  for  an  im- 
portant place.  But  if  she  would  take  him  as  a 
first-class  artificer  he  would  be  more  than  grate- 
ful, and  ventured  on  the  little  pleasantry  that 
even  if  he  had  to  be  squeezed  in  as  a  supernum- 
erary he  was  confident  he  could  save  her  his  pay 
and  keep  a  good  many  times  over. 

He  got  an  answer  a  couple  of  days  later,  ad- 
dressed from  a  fashionable  New  York  hotel  and 
granting  him  an  interview.  She  called  him 
"  dear  Frank,"  and  signed  herself  "  ever  yours," 
and  said  that  of  course  she  would  give  him  any- 
thing he  wanted,  only  that  she  would  prefer  to 
talk  it  over  first. 

He  put  on  his  best  clothes  and  went  to  see  her, 
being  shown  into  a  large  suite  on  the  second 
floor,  where  he  had  to  wait  an  hour  in  a  lofty 
anteroom  with  no  other  company  but  a  statue  of 
Pocahontas.  He  was  oppressed  by  the  gor- 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

geousness  of  the  surroundings — by  the  frowning 
pictures,  the  gilt  furniture,  the  onyx-topped 
tables,  the  vases,  the  mirrors,  the  ornate  clocks. 
He  was  in  a  fever  of  expectation,  and  could  not 
fight  down  his  growing  timidity.  He  had  hot 
seen  Florence  for  a  year,  and  his  heart  would 
have  been  as  much  in  his  mouth  had  the  meeting 
been  set  in  the  old  brick  house  at  Bridgeport. 
At  least  he  said  so  to  himself,  not  caring  to  con- 
fess that  he  was  daunted  by  the  magnificence  of 
the  apartment. 

At  length  the  door  opened  and  she  came  in. 
She  stood  for  a  moment  with  her  hand  on  the 
knob  and  looked  at  him ;  then  she  came  over  to 
him  with  a  little  rush  and  took  his  outstretched 
hand.  He  had  forgotten  how  beautiful  she 
was,  or  probably  he  had  never  really  known,  as 
he  had  never  beheld  her  before  in  one  of  those 
wonderful  French  creations  that  cost  each  one  a 
fortune.  He  stumbled  over  his  words  of  greet- 
ing, and  his  hand  trembled  as  he  held  hers. 

[27] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

"  Oh,  Frank,"  she  said,  noticing  his  agita- 
tion. "  Are  you  still  silly  enough  to  care?  " 

"  I  am  afraid  I  do,  Florence,"  he  said,  blush- 
ing like  a  boy  at  her  unexpected  question. 
"  What's  the  good  of  asking  me  that?  " 

1  You  are  looking  handsome,  Frank,"  she 
ran  on.  "  I  am  proud  of  you.  You  have  the 
nicest  hair  of  any  man  I  know !  " 

"  I  daren't  say  how  stunning  you  look,  Flor- 
ence," he  returned. 

"  Frank,"  she  said,  slowly,  fixing  her  lus- 
trous eyes  on  his  face,  "  you  usen't  to  be  so 
grave.  ...  I  don't  think  you  have  smiled 
much  lately  .  .  .  you  are  changed." 

He  bore  her  scrutiny  with  silence. 

"  Poor  boy!  "  she  exclaimed,  impulsively  tak- 
ing his  hand.  "  I'm  the  most  heartless  creature 
in  the  whole  world.  Do  you  know,  Frank, 
though  I  look  so  nice  and  girlish,  I  am  really  a 
brute;  and  when  I  die  I  am  sure  to  go  to  hell." 

"  I  hope  not,"  he  said,  smiling. 

[28] 


THE     CHIEF    ENGINEER 

"  Oh,  but  I  know !  "  she  cried.  "  All  I  ever 
do  is  to  make  people  miserable." 

"  Perhaps  it's  the  people's  fault,  for — for 
loving  you,  Florence,"  he  said. 

"  It's  awfully  exciting  to  see  you  again,"  she 
went  on.  "  You  came  within  an  ace  of  being 
my  husband.  I  might  have  belonged  to  you  and 
counted  your  washing.  It's  queer,  isn't  it? 
Thrilling!" 

"  Why  do  you  bring  all  that  up,  Florence?  " 
he  said.  "  It's  done.  It's  over.  I — I  would 
rather  not  speak  of  it." 

"  But  it  was  such  an  awfully  near  thing, 
Frank,"  she  persisted.  "  I  had  made  up  my 
mind  to  take  you,  you  know.  I  had  even  looked 
over  my  poor  little  clothes  and  had  drawn  a 
hundred  dollars  out  of  the  savings  bank!  " 

"  You  don't  take  much  account  of  a  hundred 
dollars  now,"  he  returned,  trying  to  smile. 

"  I  know  you  don't  want  to  talk  about  it,"  shq 
said,  "  but  I  do.  I  love  to  play  with  emotions, 

[29] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

I  suppose  it's  a  habit,  like  any  other,"  she  con- 
tinued, "  and  it  grows  on  one  like  opium  or  mor- 
phine. That's  why  I'll  go  to  hell,  Frank.  It 
wasn't  that  way  at  all  when  you  used  to  know 
me.  I  think  I  must  have  been  nice  then,  and 
really  worth  loving !  " 

"  Oh,  yes!"  he  returned  miserably.  "  Oh, 
yes!" 

"  I  have  a  whole  series  of  the  most  compli- 
cated emotions  about  you,"  she  said,  "  only  a 
lot  of  them  are  unexploded,  like  fire  crackers  be- 
fore they  are  touched  off.  If  I  lost  all  my  money 
I'd  be  in  a  panic  till  you  came  and  took  me ;  but 
as  long  as  I  have  it  I  don't  think  of  you  more 
than  once  a  week.  Yet,  do  you  know,  Frank, 
if  you  got  a  sweetheart,  I  believe  I'd  scratch  her 
eyes  out.  It's  rather  fine  of  me  to  tell  you  all 
that,"  she  went  on,  with  a  smile,  "  for  I'm 
giving  you  the  key  of  the  combination,  and  you 
might  take  advantage  of  it !  " 

"  Florence,"  he  said,  "  I  thought  at  first  you 
[30] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

were  just  laughing  at  me,  but  I  see  that  you  are 
right.  You  are  heartless.  You  oughtn't  to  talk 
like  that." 

She  looked  a  shade  put  out. 

"  Well,  Frank,  it's  the  truth,  anyway,"  she 
said,  "  and  in  the  old  days  we  were  always  such 
sticklers  for  the  truth — for  sincerity,  you  know 
— weren't  we?  " 

"  I  have  no  business  to  correct  you,"  he  said 
humbly.  "  I  resigned  all  my  pretensions  that 
morning  in  the  old  house." 

"  Well,  so  long  as  you  love  me  still !  "  she  ex- 
claimed, with  a  little  mocking  laugh.  "  That's 
the  great  thing,  isn't  it?  I  mean  for  me,  of 
course.  I  am  greedy  for  love.  It  makes  me 
feel  so  safe  and  comfortable  to  think  there  are 
whole  rows  of  men  that  love  me.  When  you 
have  a  great  fortune  you  begin  to  appreciate  the 
things  that  money  cannot  buy." 

"  Oh,  your  money !  "  he  said.  That  word  in 
her  mouth  always  stung  him. 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

"  Well,  you  ought  to  hate  my  money, "  she 
remarked  cheerfully.  "  It  queered  you,  didn't 
it  ?  And  then  all  rich  people  are  detestable,  any- 
way— selfish  to  the  core,  and  horrid.  Do  you 
know  that  sometimes  when  I  have  flirted  aw- 
fully with  a  man  at  a  dinner  or  somewhere,  and 
the  next  day  he  telephones — and  the  telephone  is 
in  the  next  room — I've  just  said :  '  Oh,  bother ! 
tell  him  I'm  out,1  rather  than  take  the  trouble 
to  get  up  from  my  chair.  And  a  nice  man, 
too!" 

"  I  thought  I  might  be  treated  the  same  way," 
he  said. 

'  Then  you  thought  wrong,  Frank,"  she 
returned,  with  a  sudden  change  from  her 
tone  of  flippancy  and  lightness.  "  I  haven't 
sunk  quite  as  low  as  that,  you  know.  I  meant 
other  people — I  didn't  mean  you,  Frank, 
dear." 

This  was  said  with  such  a  little  ring  of  kind- 
ness that  Frank  was  moved. 
[32] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

"  Then  the  old  days  still  count  for  some- 
thing? "  he  said. 

"  Oh,  yes !  "  she  said. 

"  But  not  enough  to  hurt?  "  he  ventured. 

"  Sometimes  they  do  and  sometimes  they 
don't,"  she  returned.  "  It  depends  on  how  good 
a  time  I'm  having.  But  I  hate  to  think  I'm 
weak  and  selfish  and  vain,  and  that  the  only  per- 
son I  really  care  for  is  myself.  I  value  my  self- 
esteem,  and  it  often  gets  an  awful  jar.  Some- 
times I  feel  like  a  girl  that  has  run  away  from 
home — diamonds  and  dyed  hair,  you  know — 
and  then  wakes  up  at  night  and  cries  to  think 
of  what  a  price  she  has  paid  for  all  her  fine 
things!"  Florence  waved  her  hand  towards 
the  alabaster  statue  of  Pocahontas,  with  a  little 
ripple  of  self-disdain.  She  was  in  a  strange 
humour,  and  beneath  the  surface  of  her  appar- 
ent gaiety  there  ran  an  undercurrent  of  bitter- 
ness and  contempt  for  herself.  Her  eyes  were 
unusually  brilliant,  and  her  cheeks  were  pink 

[33] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

enough  to  have  been  rouged.  The  sight  of  her 
old  lover  had  stirred  many  memories  in  her 
bosom. 

"And  what  about  my  job,  Florence?"  he 
said,  changing  the  conversation.  "  I've  caught 
the  yachting  idea,  too.  Can  it  be  managed?" 

"  Oh,  I  want  to  talk  to  you  about  that,"  she 
said. 

"  Well,  go  on,"  he  said,  as  she  hesitated. 

"  I  am  so  afraid  of  hurting  your  feelings, 
Frank,"  she  said  with  a  singular  timidity. 

"  My  feelings  are  probably  tougher  than  you 
think,"  he  returned. 

"  You  will  think  so  badly  of  me,"  she  said. 
"  You  will  be  affronted." 

"  It  sounds  as  though  you  wanted  to  engage 
me  for  your  butler,"  he  said.  Then,  as  she  still 
withheld  the  words  on  her  lips,  he  went  on: 
"  Don't  be  uneasy  about  saying  it,  Florence.  If 
it's  impossible — why,  that's  the  end  of  it,  of 
course,  and  no  harm  done." 

[34] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

"  I  want  you  to  come,"  she  said  simply. 

"Then,  what's  the  trouble?"  he  demanded, 
getting  more  and  more  mystified.  "  I  don't 
mind  being  an  artificer  the  least  bit.  I  like  to 
work  with  my  hands.  Fm  a  good  mechanic, 
and  I  like  it." 

"  I  want  you  for  my  chief  engineer,"  she 
said. 

This  was  news,  indeed.  Frank's  face  betrayed 
his  keen  pleasure.  He  had  never  soared  to  the 
heights  of  asking  or  expecting  that. 

"  I  had  to  dismiss  the  last  one,"  she  went  on. 
"  That's  the  reason  why  Fm  still  here,  and  not 
two  days  out,  as  I  had  expected.  He  locked 
himself  in  his  cabin  and  shot  at  people  through 
the  door,  and  told  awful  lies  to  the  newspapers." 

"  If  it's  anything  about  my  qualifications,"  he 
said,  thinking  he  had  found  the  reason  of  her 
backwardness,  "  I  don't  fancy  I'll  have  any 
trouble  to  satisfy  you.  I  don't  want  to  toot  my 
own  horn,  Florence,  but  really,  you  know,  I  am 

[35] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

rated  a  first-class  man.  I'll  prove  that  by  my 
certificates  and  all  that,  or  give  me  two  weeks' 
trial,  and  see  for  yourself." 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  that,"  she  said. 

"  Then,  what  is  it?  "  he  broke  out.  "  Only 
the  other  day  they  offered  me  a  Western  Ocean 
liner,  and,  if  you  like,  I'll  send  you  the  letter.  If 
I  am  good  enough  for  a  big  passenger  ship, 
I  guess  I  can  run  the  Minnehaha  to  please 
you !  " 

"  Frank,"  she  returned,  "  it  is  not  a  question 
of  your  competency  at  all.  You  know  very  well 
I'd  trust  my  life  to  you,  blindfold.  It's — it's  the 
social  side,  the  old  affair  between  us,  the  first 
names  and  all  that  kind  of  thing." 

"  Oh,  I  see!  "he  said  blankly. 

"  As  an  officer  on  my  ship,"  she  said,  "  you 
could  easily  put  yourself  and  me  in  a  difficult 
position.  In  a  way,  we'll  really  be  further  apart 
than  if  you  were  in  South  America  and  I  in 
Monte  Carlo,  for,  though  we'd  always  be  good 

[36] 


THE     CHIEF    ENGINEER 
friends,  and  all  that,  the  formalities  would  have 
to  be  observed.     Now,  I  have  offended  you?  " 
she  added,  putting  out  her  hand  appealingly. 

"  I  think  you  might  have  known  me  better, 
Florence,"  he  returned.  "  I  am  not  offended — 
what  right  have  I  to  be  offended — only  a  little 
hurt,  perhaps,  to  think  that  you  could  doubt  me 
for  a  single  moment  in  such  a  mater.  I  under- 
stand very  well,  and  appreciate  the  need  for  it. 
Did  you  expect  me  to  call  you  Florence  on  the 
quarterdeck  of  your  own  vessel,  and  presume  on 
our  old  friendship  to  embarrass  you  and  set  peo- 
ple talking?  Good  Heavens,  what  do  you  take 
me  for?" 

"  Don't  be  angry  with  me,  Frank,"  she 
pleaded.  "  It  had  to  be  said,  you  know.  I 
wanted  you  so  much  to  come ;  I  wanted  to  share 
my  beautiful  vessel  with  you;  and  yet  I  dreaded 
any  kind  of  a  false  position." 

"  I  shall  treat  you  precisely  as  I  would  any 
owner  of  any  ship  I  sailed  on,"  he  said.  '  That 

[37] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

is,  with  respect  and  always  preserving  my  dis- 
tance. I  will  never  address  you  first  except  to 
say  good-morning  and  good-evening,  and  will 
show  no  concern  if  you  do  not  speak  to  me  for 
days  on  end." 

"  Oh,  Frank,  you  are  an  angel!  "  she  cried. 

"  No,"  he  returned,  "  only — as  far  as  I  can — 
a  gentleman,  Miss  Fenacre." 

"  We  needn't  begin  now,  Frank,"  she  ex- 
claimed, almost  with  annoyance. 

"  Am  I  in  your  service?  "  he  asked. 

"  From  to-day,"  she  answered,  u  and  I  will 
give  you  a  note  to  Captain  Landry." 

"  Then  you  will  he  Miss  Fenacre  to  me  from 
now  on,"  he  said. 

"  You  must  say  good-bye  to  Florence  first," 
she  said,  smiling.  "  You  may  kiss  my  hand," 
she  said,  as  she  gave  it  to  him.  "  You  used  to 
do  it  so  gallantly  in  the  old  days — such  a  Span- 
iard that  you  are,  Frank — and  I  liked  it  so 
much!" 

[38] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

He  did  so,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  life 
with  a  kind  of  shame. 

"  I  hope  we  are  not  both  of  us  making  a  ter- 
rible mistake,  Florence,"  he  said. 

"  Oh,  I  couldn't  want  a  better  chief !  "  she 
said,  "  and,  as  for  you,  it's  the  wisest  thing  you 
ever  did.  It's  me,  after  all,  who  is  making  the 
sacrifice,  for,  in  a  month  or  two,  all  the  gilt  will 
wear  off,  and  you  will  see  me  as  I  really  am. 
You  will  find  it  very  disillusioning  to  go  to  sea 
with  your  divinity,"  she  added.  "  You  will 
discover  she  is  a  very  flesh-and-blood  affair, 
after  all,  Frank,  and  not  worth  the  tip  of  your 
little  finger." 

"  I  had  a  good  many  opportunities  of  judging 
before,"  he  replied,  "  and  the  more  I  knew  her 
the  more  I  loved  her." 

"  Well,  I  am  changed  now,"  she  said.  "  I 
suppose  all  the  bad  has  come  to  the  surface  since 
— like  the  slag  when  they  melt  iron  and  skim 
it  off  with  dippers — only  with  me  there's  nobody 

[39] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

to  dip.  If  /  am  astounded  at  the  difference, 
what  do  you  suppose  you'll  be?  " 

"  There  never  could  be  any  difference  to  me," 
he  said. 

"  That's  the  only  kind  of  love  worth  talking 
about,"  she  said,  going  to  the  window  and  look- 
ing out. 

For  a  while  neither  of  them  spoke.  Frank 
rose  and  stood  with  his  hat  in  his  hand,  waiting 
to  take  his  departure.  Florence  turned,  and 
going  to  an  escritoire  sat  down  and  wrote  a  few 
lines  on  a  card. 

"  Present  this  to  Captain  Landry,"  she  said, 
"  and,  now,  my  dear  chief  engineer,  I  will  give 
you  your  congt" 

He  thanked  her,  and  put  the  card  carefully  in 
his  pocketbook. 

"  What  a  farce  it  all  is,  Frank!  "  she  broke 
out.  "  There's  something  wrong  in  a  system 
that  gives  a  girl  millions  of  dollars  to  do  just 
as  she  likes  with.  I  don't  care  what  they  say  to 

[40] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

the  contrary;  I  believe  women  were  meant  to 
belong  to  men,  to  live  in  semi-slavery  and  do 
what  they  are  told,  to  bring  up  children  and 
travel  with  the  pots  and  pans,  and  find  their 
only  reward  in  pleasing  their  husbands." 

"  I  wouldn't  care  to  pass  an  opinion,"  said 
Frank.  "  Some  of  them  are  happy  that  way, 
no  doubt." 

u  What  does  anybody  want  except  to  be 
happy?"  she  continued,  in  the  same  strain  of 
resentment.  "  Isn't  that  what  all  are  trying 
for  as  hard  as  they  can?  I'd  like  to  go  out  in 
the  street  and  stop  people  as  they  came  along 
and  ask  them,  the  one  after  the  other:  *  Would 
you  tell  me  if  you  are  happy?  '  And  the  one 
that  said  '  yes '  I'd  give  a  hundred  dollars 
to  I  " 

"  As  like  as  not  it  would  be  some  shabby  fel- 
low with  no  overcoat,"  said  Frank. 

"  Now  you  can  go  away !  "  she  exclaimed  sud- 
denly. "  I  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

me,  Frank.  I  think  I'm  going  to  cry !  Go,  go !  " 
she  cried  imperiously,  as  he  still  stood  there. 

Frank  bowed  and  obeyed,  and  his  last 
glimpse,  as  he  closed  the  door,  was  of  her  at 
the  window,  looking  down  disconsolately  into 
the  street  below. 

Ill 

Spring  was  well  begun  when  the  Minnehaha 
sailed  for  F,urope  to  take  her  place  in  the 
mimic  fleets  that  were  already  assembling.  As 
like  seeks  like,  so  the  long,  swift  white 
steamer  headed  like  a  bird  for  her  far- 
away companions,  and  arrived  amongst  them 
with  colours  flying,  and  her  guns  roaring 
out  salutes.  By  herself  she  was  greedy  for  every 
pound  of  steam  and  raced  her  engines  as  though 
speed  were  a  matter  of  life  and  death;  but,  once 
in  company,  she  was  content  to  lag  with  the 
slowest,  and  suit  her  own  pace  to  the  stately 
progress  of  the  schooners  and  cutters  that  moved 

[42] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

by  the  wind  alone.  She  found  friends  amongst 
all  nations,  and,  in  that  cosmopolitan  society  of 
ships,  dipped  her  flag  to  those  of  England, 
France,  Holland,  Belgium,  and  Germany. 

It  was  a  wonderful  life  of  freedom  and 
gaiety.  A  great  yacht  carries  her  own  letter  of 
introduction,  and  is  accorded  everywhere  the 
courtesies  of  a  man-of-war,  to  whom,  in  a  sense, 
she  is  a  sister.  Official  visits  are  paid  and  re- 
turned; naval  punctilio  reigns;  invitations  are 
lavished  from  every  side.  There  is,  besides,  a 
freemasonry  amongst  those  splendid  wanderers 
of  the  sea,  a  transcendent  Bohemianism,  that 
puts  them  nearly  all  upon  a  common  footing.  A 
holiday  spirit  is  in  the  air,  and  kings  and  princes 
who  at  home  are  hidden  within  walls  of  triple 
brass,  here  unbend  like  children  out  of  school, 
and  make  friends  and  gossip  about  their  neigh- 
bours and  show  off  their  engine-rooms  and  their 
ice  plant  and  some  new  idea  in  patent  boat  davits 
after  the  manner  of  very  ordinary  mortals. 
[43] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

Not  of  course  that  kings  and  princes  predom- 
inate, but  the  same  spirit  prevailed  with  those 
who  on  shore  held  their  heads  very  high  and 
practised  a  jealous  exclusiveness.  Amongst 
them  all  Florence  Fenacre  was  a  favourite  of 
favourites.  Young,  beautiful,  and  the  mistress 
of  a  noble  fortune,  there  was  everything  to  cast 
a  glamour  about  this  charming  American  who 
had  come  out  of  the  unknown  to  take  all  hearts 
by  storm. 

Her  haziness  about  distinctions  of  rank  filled 
these  Europeans  with  an  amused  amazement. 
There  was  to  them  something  quite  royal  in  her 
naivety  and  lack  of  awe;  in  her  high  spirit,  her 
vivacity,  and  her  absolute  disregard  of  those  who 
failed  to  please  her.  She  convulsed  one  per- 
sonage by  describing  another  as  "  that  tiresome 
old  man  who's  really  too  disreputable  to  have 
tagging  around  me  any  longer ";  and  had  a 
quarrel  and  a  making  up  with  a  reigning  duke 
about  a  lighter  of  coal  that  their  respective  crews 
[44] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

had  come  to  blows  over.  Everybody  adored 
her,  and  she  seldom  put  to  sea  without  a  love- 
sick yacht  in  her  wake. 

Of  course,  here  as  elsewhere,  every  phase  of 
human  character  was  displayed,  and  most  con- 
spicuous of  all  amongst  the  evil  was  the  deter- 
mination of  many  to  win  Florence's  millions 
for  themselves.  Amid  that  noble  concourse  of 
vessels,  every  one  of  which  stood  for  a  princely 
income,  there  were  adventurers  as  needy  and  as 
hungry  as  any  sharper  in  the  streets  of  New 
York.  There  is  an  aristocratic  poverty,  none 
the  less  real  because  three  noughts  must  be  added 
to  all  the  figures,  that  first  surprised  and  then 
disgusted  the  pretty  American.  Her  first 
awakening  to  the  fact  was  when,  as  a  special  fa- 
vour, she  sold  her  best  steam  launch  to  a  French 
marquise  at  the  price  it  had  cost  her.  Though 
that  lady  was  very  profuse  with  little  pink  notes 
and  could  purr  over  Florence  by  the  hour,  her 
signature  on  a  cheque  was  never  forthcoming, 

[45] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

and  our  heroine  had  a  fit  of  fury  to  think  of 
having  been  so  deceived. 

"  It  was  a  downright  confidence  trick,"  she 
burst  out  to  the  comte  de  Souvary,  firing  up 
afresh  with  the  memory  of  her  wrongs.  "  I 
loved  my  launch.  It  was  a  beauty.  It  never 
went  dotty  at  the  time  you  needed  it  most  and  it 
was  a  vertical  inverted  triple-expansion  direct- 
acting  propeller ! '  (Florence  could  always  rattle 
off  technical  details  and  showed  her  Americanism 
in  her  catalogue-like  fluency  in  this  respect.) 
"  And  I  miss  it  and  I  want  it  back,  and  the 
horrid  old  woman  never  means  to  pay  me  a 
penny !  " 

"  Oh,  my  child !  "  said  the  count,  "  she  never 
pays  anybody  ze  penny.  She  is  a  stone  from 
which  one  looks  in  vain  for  blood.  Your  launch 
is — what  do  you  call  it  in  ze  Far  Vest — a 
goner !  " 

"  But  she's  descended  from  Charlemagne," 
cried  Florence.  "  She  has  the  entree  to  all  the 

[46] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

courts.  She  ought  to  be  exposed  for  stealing 
my  boat!" 

"  What  does  anybody  do  when  he  is  robbed?  " 
said  the  count  philosophically.  He  could  afford 
to  be  philosophical:  it  wasn't  his  vertical  in- 
verted triple-expansion  direct-acting  propeller. 
"  Smile  and  be  more  careful  ze  next  time," 
he  went  on.  "  The  marquise's  reputation  is  in- 
ternational for  what  is  charitably  called  her 
eccentricity." 

"  In  America  they  put  people  in  jail  for 
that  kind  of  eccentricity!"  exclaimed  Flor- 
ence. 

"  Oh,  the  best  way  in  Europe  is  money-with- 
order,"  said  the  count,  "  what  I  remember  once 
a  friend  seeing  in  that  great  country  of  which 
you  are  ze  ornament — in  God  we  trust:  all 
others  cash !  " 

"  Well,  it's  a  shame,"  said  Florence,  "  and  if 
I  ever  get  the  chance  of  a  dark  night  I'll  ram  her 
with  the  Minnehaha!  " 

[47] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

Florence's  mother,  a  dear  little  old  lady  who 
did  tatting  and  read  the  Christian  Herald,  was 
always  the  particular  target  of  the  fortune- 
hunters  who  pursued  her  daughter.  It  seemed 
such  a  brilliant  idea  to  capture  the  mother  first 
as  the  preparatory  step  of  getting  into  the  good 
graces  of  the  heiress;  and  the  old  lady,  who  was 
one  of  the  most  guileless  of  her  sex,  never 
failed  to  fall  into  the  trap  and  take  the  atten- 
tions all  in  earnest.  Comte  de  Souvary  used  to 
say  that  if  you  wished  to  find  the  wickedest  men 
in  Europe  you  had  only  to  cast  your  eyes  in  the 
direction  of  Florence's  mother;  and  she  would 
be  trotted  off  to  church  and  driven  in  automo- 
biles and  lunched  in  casinos  by  the  most  noto- 
rious and  unprincipled  scapegraces  of  the  Old 
World. 

Florence,  who,  like  all  heiresses,  had  devel- 
oped a  positive  instinct  for  the  men  who  meant 
her  mischief,  was  always  delighted  at  the  re- 
peated captures  of  the  old  lady;  and  it  was  an 

[48] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

endless  entertainment  to  her  when  her  mother 
was  induced  to  champion  the  cause  of  some 
aristocratic  ne'er-do-well. 

"  But,  Mamma,"  she  would  say,  "  I  hate  to 
call  your  friends  names,  but  really  he's  a  perfect 
scamp,  and  underneath  all  his  fine  manners  he 
is  no  better  than  a  wolf  ravening  for  rich  young 
lambs!" 

"  Oh,  Florence,  how  can  you  be  so  uncharita- 
ble!  "  her  mother  would  retort.  "If  you  could 
only  hear  the  way  he  speaks  of  his  mother  and 
his  ruined  life,  and  how  he  is  trying  to  be  a 
better  man  for  your  sake " 

"  Always  the  same  old  story,"  said  Florence. 
"  It's  wonderful  the  good  I  do  just  sailing 
around  and  radiating  moral  influence.  The 
count  says  I  ought  to  get  a  medal  from  the 
government  with  my  profile  on  one  side  and  a 
composite  picture  of  my  admirers  on  the  other! 
And  if  I  do,  Mamsey,  I'll  give  it  to  you  to 
keep!" 

[49] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

Frank  Rignold  was  sometimes  tempted  to 
curse  the  day  that  had  ever  brought  him  aboard 
the  Minnehaha.  To  be  a  silent  spectator  of  gai- 
eties and  festivities  he  could  not  share;  to  be 
condemned  to  stand  aloof  while  he  saw  the 
woman  he  loved  petted  and  sought  after  by  men 
of  exalted  position — what  could  be  imagined 
more  detestable  to  a  lover  without  hope,  without 
the  shadow  of  a  claim,  with  nothing  to  look  for- 
ward to  except  the  inevitable  day  when  a  luckier 
fellow  would  carry  her  off  before  his  eyes.  He 
moped  in  secret  and  often  spent  hours  locked  in 
his  cabin,  sitting  with  his  face  in  his  hands,  a 
prey  to  the  bitterest  melancholy  and  dejection. 
In  public,  however,  he  always  bore  himself  un- 
flinchingly, and  was  too  proud  a  man  and  too 
innately  a  gentleman  to  allow  his  face  to  be  read 
even  by  her.  It  was  incumbent  on  him,  so  long 
as  he  drew  her  pay  and  wore  her  uniform,  to  act 
in  all  respects  the  part  he  was  cast  to  play;  and 
no  one  could  have  guessed,  except  perhaps  the 
[So] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

girl  herself,  that  he  had  any  other  thought  save 
to  do  his  duty  cheerfully  and  well. 

Captain  Landry  sat  in  the  saloon  at  the 
bottom  of  the  table,  Florence  herself  taking  the 
head;  but  the  other  officers  of  the  ship  had  a 
cosey  messroom  of  their  own,  presided  over  by 
Frank  Rignold  as  the  officer  second  in  rank  on 
board.  Thus  whole  days  might  pass  with  no 
further  exchange  between  himself  and  Florence 
than  the  customary  good-morning  when  they 
happened  to  meet  on  deck.  Except  on  the  busi- 
ness of  the  ship  it  was  tacitly  understood  that 
no  officer  should  speak  to  her  without  being  first 
addressed.  The  discipline  of  a  man-of-war  pre- 
vailed; everything  went  forward  with  ster- 
eotyped precision  and  formality;  the  officers 
were  supposed  to  comport  themselves  with  im- 
passivity and  self-effacement.  Florence  had  no 
more  need  of  being  conscious  of  their  presence 
than  if  they  had  been  so  many  automatons. 

Her  life  and  theirs  offered  a  strange  contrast. 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

She  in  her  little  court  of  idlers  and  merry- 
makers; they,  the  grave  men  who  were  answer- 
able for  her  safety,  the  exponents  of  a  rigid 
routine,  to  whom  the  clang  of  the  bells  brought 
recurring  duties  and  the  exercise  of  their  pro- 
fessional knowledge.  To  her,  yachting  was  a 
play:  to  them,  a  business. 

"  I  often  remark  your  chief  engineer,"  said 
the  comte  de  Souvary  to  Florence.  "  A  hand- 
some man,  with  an  air  at  once  sad  and  noble — 
one  of  zoze  extraordinary  Americans  who  keep 
for  their  machines  the  ardour  we  Europeans  lav- 
ish on  the  women  we  love — and  whose  spirits 
when  zey  die  turn  without  doubt  into  petrole  or 
electricity." 

"  I  have  known  Mr.  Rignold  ever  since  I  was 
a  child,"  said  Florence,  pleased  to  hear  Frank 
praised.  "  I  regard  him  as  one  of  my  best  and 
dearest  friends." 

"  The  more  to  his  credit,"  said  the  count, 
astonished.  "  Many  in  such  a  gaUre  would 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

prove    themselves    presumptuous    and    trouble- 


some." 


"  He  is  almost  too  much  the  other  way,"  said 
Florence,  with  a  sigh. 

"  Ah,  that  appeals  to  me !  "  said  the  count. 
"  I  should  be  such  anozzer  in  his  place.  Proud, 
silent,  unobtrusive,  who  gives  dignity  to  what 
otherwise  would  be  a  false  position." 

"  I  came  very  near  being  his  wife  once,"  said 
Florence,  impelled,  she  hardly  knew  why,  to 
make  the  confession. 

The  count  was  thunderstruck. 

"  His  wife !  "  he  exclaimed. 

"  Before  I  was  rich,  you  know,"  explained 
Florence.  "  A  million  years  ago  it  seems 
now,  when  I  lived  in  a  little  town  and  was  a 
nobody." 

"  Anozzer  romance  of  the  Far  Vest !  "  cried 
the  count,  to  whom  this  term  embraced 
the  entire  continent  from  Maine  to  San  Fran- 
cisco. 

[53] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

Florence  was  curiously  capricious  in  her  treat- 
ment of  Frank  Rignold.  Often  she  would 
neglect  him  for  weeks  together,  and  then,  in  a 
sort  of  revulsion,  would  go  almost  to  the  other 
extreme.  Sometimes  at  night,  when  he  would 
be  pacing  the  deck,  she  would  come  and  take  his 
arm  and  call  him  Frank  under  her  breath  and 
ask  him  if  he  still  loved  her;  and  in  a  manner 
half  tender,  half  mocking,  would  play  on  his 
feelings  with  a  deliberate  enjoyment  of  the  pain 
she  inflicted.  Her  greatest  power  of  torment 
was  her  frankness.  She  would  talk  over  her 
proposals;  weigh  one  against  the  other;  revel 
in  her  self-analysis  and  solemnly  ask  Frank  his 
opinion  on  this  or  that  part  of  her  character. 
She  talked  with  equal  freedom  of  her  regard 
for  himself,  and  was  almost  brutal  in  confessing 
how  hard  it  was  to  hold  herself  back. 

"  I  think  I  must  be  awfully  wicked,  Frank," 
she  sai-d  to  him  once.  "  I  love  you  so  dearly, 
and  yet  I  wouldn't  marry  you  for  anything !  " 

[54] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

And  then  she  ran  on  as  to  whether  she  ought  to 
take  Souvary  and  live  in  Paris  or  Lord  Comyngs 
and  choose  London.  "  It's  so  hard  to  decide," 
she  said,  "  and  it's  so  important,  because  one 
couldn't  change  one's  mind  afterwards." 

"  Not  very  well,"  said  Frank. 

'  You  mustn't  grind  your  teeth  so  loud,"  she 
said.  "  It's  compromising." 

"  I  wish  you  would  talk  about  something  else 
or  go  away,"  he  said,  goaded  out  of  his  usual 
politeness. 

"  Oh,  I  love  my  little  stolen  t£te-ti-tttes  with 
you  !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  All  those  other  men  are 
used  up,  emotionally  speaking.  The  count 
would  turn  a  neat  phrase  even  if  he  were  to  blow 
his  brains  out  the  next  minute.  They  think  they 
are  splendidly  cool,  but  it  only  means  that  they 
have  exhausted  all  their  powers  of  sensation. 
You  are  delightfully  primitive  and  unspoiled, 
and  then  I  suppose  it  is  natural  to  like  a  fellow- 
countryman  best,  isn't  it?  Now,  honest — have 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 
you  found  any  girls  over  here  you  like  as  well  as 
me?" 

"  I  haven't  tried  to  find  any,"  said  Frank. 

"You  aren't  a  bit  disillusioned,  are  you?" 
she  said.  "  You  simply  shut  your  eyes  and  go 
it  blind.  A  woman  likes  that  in  a  man.  It's 
what  love  ought  to  be.  It's  silly  of  me  to  throw 
it  away." 

"  Perhaps  it  is,  Florence,"  he  said.  "  Who 
knows  but  what  some  day  you  may  regret  it?  " 

"  I  often  think  of  that,"  she  returned.  "  I 
am  afraid  all  the  good  part  of  me  loves  you,  and 
all  the  bad  loves  the  counts  and  dukes  and  earls, 
you  know.  And  the  good  is  almost  drowned 
in  all  the  rest,  like  vegetables  in  vegetable  soup." 

She  excelled  in  giving  such  little  dampers  to 
sentiment,  and  laughed  heartily  at  Frank's  dis- 
comfiture. 

"  You  can  be  awfully  cruel,"  he  said.     "  I 
wonder  you  can  be  so  beautiful  when  you  can 
think  such  things  and  say  them.     You  treat 
[56] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

hearts  like   toys   and  laugh  when   you  break 
them." 

"  Well,  there's  one  thing,  Frank,"  she  said 
seriously.  "  I  have  never  pretended  to  you  or 
tried  to  appear  better  than  I  am;  and  you  are 
the  only  man  I  can  say  that  to  and  not  lie !  " 

IV 

The  comte  de  Souvary,  towards  whom  Flor- 
ence betrayed  an  inclination  that  seemed  at  times 
to  deserve  a  warmer  word,  was  a  French  gentle- 
man nearing  forty.  He  was  a  man  of  distin- 
guished appearance,  with  all  the  gaiety,  grace, 
and  charm  that,  in  spite  our  popular  impression 
to  the  contrary,  are  not  seldom  found  amongst 
the  nobles  of  his  country.  His  undoubted  wealth 
and  position  redeemed  his  suit  from  any  appear- 
ance of  being  inspired  by  a  mercenary  motive. 
Indeed,  he  was  accustomed  himself  to  be  pur- 
sued, and  Florence  and  he  recognised  in  each 
other  a  fellowship  of  persecution. 

[57] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

"  We  are  ze  Pale  Faces,"  he  would  say,  "  and 
ze  ozzers  zey  are  Indians  closing  in  from  every 
corner  of  ze  Far  Vest  for  our  scalps !  " 

He  was,  in  many  ways,  the  most  accomplished 
man  that  Florence  had  ever  known.  He  was  a 
violinist,  a  singer,  a  poet,  and  yet  these  were  but 
a  part  of  his  various  gifts;  for  in  everything  out 
of  doors  he  was  no  less  a  master  and  took  the 
first  place  as  though  by  right.  He  was  the  em- 
bodiment of  everything  daring  and  manly;  it 
seemed  natural  for  him  to  excel;  he  simply  did 
not  know  what  fear  was.  He  was  always  ready 
to  smile  and  turn  a  little  joke,  whether  speeding 
in  his  automobile  at  a  breakneck  pace  or  balloon- 
ing above  the  clouds  in  search  of  what  was  to  him 
the  breath  of  life:  "  ze  sensation."  He  could 
never  see  a  new  form  of  "  ze  sensation  "  without 
running  for  it  like  a  child  for  a  new  toy.  His 
whole  attitude  towards  the  world  was  that  of  a 
furious  curiosity.  He  could  not  bear  to  leave  it, 
he  said,  until  all  he  had  learned  how  all  the 

[58] 


THE  CHIEF  ENGINEER 
wheels  went  round.  He  had  stood  on  the  Mat- 
terhorn.  He  had  driven  the  Sud  express.  He 
had  exhausted  lions  and  tigers.  In  moods  of 
depression  he  would  threaten  to  follow  Andrde 
to  the  pole  and  figure  out  his  plans  on  the  back 
of  an  envelope. 

"  Magnificent!  "  he  would  cry,  growing  in- 
stantly cheerful  at  the  prospect.  "  Tfiink  of  ze 
sensation !  " 

He  spoke  English  fluently,  though  shaky  on 
the  th  and  the  w,  and  it  was  first  hand  and  not 
mentally  translated.  His  pronunciation  of  Far 
West,  two  words  that  were  constantly  on  his 
lips,  was  an  endless  entertainment  to  Florence, 
and  out  of  a  sense  of  humour  she  forebore 
to  correct  him.  It  was  typical,  indeed,  of 
his  ignorance  of  everything  American.  Europe 
was  at  his  fingers'  ends ;  there  was  not  a  country 
in  it  he  was  not  familiar  with ;  intimately  famil- 
iar, knowing  much  of  what  went  on  behind  the 
scenes,  and  the  lives  and  characters  of  the  men, 

[59] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

and  not  less  the  women,  who  shaped  national 
policies  and  held  the  steering-wheels  of  state. 

"  Muravief  would  never  do  that,"  he  would 
say.  "  He  is  constitutionally  inert,  and  his  im- 
agination has  carried  him  through  too  many  un- 
fought  wars  for  him  to  throw  down  the  gage 
now.  He  smokes  cigarettes  and  dreams  of  end- 
less peace.  I  had  many  talks  with  him  last  year 
and  found  him  impatient  of  any  subject  but  the 
redemption  of  the  paper  rouble !  " 

But  his  mind  had  never  crossed  the  Atlantic 
Ocean.  He  still  thought  that  the  Civil  War 
had  been  between  North  and  South  America. 
To  him  the  United  States  was  a  vague  region 
peopled  with  miners,  pork-packers,  and  Indians ; 
a  jumble  of  factories,  forests,  and  red-shirted 
men  digging  for  gold,  all  of  it  fantastically  seen 
through  the  medium  of  Buffalo  Bill's  show.  It 
was  a  constant  wonder  to  him  that  such  condi- 
tions had  been  able  to  produce  a  woman  like 
Florence  Fenacre. 

[60] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

"  You  are  the  flower  of  ze  prairie,"  he  would 
say,  "  an  atavism  of  type,  harking  back  a  dozen 
generations  to  aristocratic  progenitors,  having 
nothing  in  common  with  the  Pathfinder  your 
Papal" 

"  He  wasn't  a  pathfinder,"  said  Florence, 
"  he  was  a  whaler  captain." 

But  this  to  the  count  seemed  only  the  more 
remarkable.  He  raised  the  fabric  of  a  fresh 
romance  on  the  instant,  especially  (on  Florence 
telling  him  more  about  her  forebears)  when  he 
began  to  mix  up  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  the  Revo- 
lutionary War,  and  the  Alabama  in  one  brisk 
panorama  of  his  ever  dear  "  Far  Vest  "  I 

Florence's  acquaintance  with  the  comte  de 
Souvary  went  back  to  Majorca,  where,  in  the 
course  of  one  of  those  sudden  blows,  so  common 
on  the  Mediterranean,  their  respective  yachts 
had  fled  for  shelter.  His  own  was  a  large  auxil- 
iary schooner  called  the  Paquita,  a  lofty,  showy 
vessel  which  he  sailed  himself  with  his  usual 
[61] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

courage  and  audacity.  He  had  the  reputation  of 
scaring  his  unhappy  guests — when  any  were  bold 
enough  to  accept  his  invitations — to  within  the 
proverbial  inch  of  their  lives;  and  they  usually 
changed  "  ze  sensation  "  for  the  nearest  mail- 
boat  home.  Florence  and  he  had  struck  up  a 
warm  friendship  from  the  start,  and  for  the 
whole  summer  their  vessels  were  inseparable, 
sailing  everywhere  in  company  and  anchoring 
side  by  side. 

The  count  had  a  way  of  courtship  peculiarly 
his  own.  He  made  it  apparent  from  the  first 
how  deeply  he  had  been  stirred  by  Florence's 
beauty  and  how  ready  he  was  to  offer  her  his 
hand;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  never  did  so  in 
set  terms,  and  treated  her  more  as  a  comrade 
than  a  divinity.  He  talked  of  his  own  devo- 
tion to  her  as  something  detached  and  im- 
personal, willing  as  much  as  she  to  laugh  over 
it  and  treat  it  lightly.  He  was  never  jealous, 
never  exacting,  and  seemed  to  be  as  happy  to 

[62] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

share  her  with  others  as  when  he  had  her  all 
alone  in  one  of  their  tete-ti-tetes.  What  he 
coveted  most  of  all  was  her  intimacy,  her  con- 
fidence, the  frank  expression  of  her  own  true 
self;  and  in  this  exchange  he  was  willing  to  give 
as  much  as  he  received  and  often  more.  Some- 
times she  was  piqued  at  his  apparent  indifference 
— at  his  lack  of  any  stronger  feeling  for  her — 
seeming  to  detect  in  him  something  of  her  own 
insouciance  and  coldness. 

"  You  really  don't  care  for  me  a  bit,"  she  said 
once.  "  I  am  only  another  form  of  '  ze  sensa- 
tion ' — like  going  up  in  a  balloon  or  riding  on 
the  cow-catcher." 

"  I  keep  myself  well  in  hand,"  he  returned. 
"  I  am  not  approaching  the  terrible  age  of  forty 
without  knowing  a  little  at  least  about  women 
and  their  ways." 

"  A  little !  "  she  exclaimed  ironically.  "  You 
know  enough  to  write  a  book !  " 

"  Zat  book  has  taught  me  to  go  very  slow," 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

he  said.  :(  Were  I  in  my  young  manhood  I'd 
come  zoop,  like  that,  and  carry  you  off  in  ze  Far 
Vest  style.  But  I  can  never  hope  to  be  that 
again  with  any  woman ;  my  decreasing  hair  for- 
bids, if  nozing  else — but  my  way  is  to  make 
myself  indispensable — ze  old  dog,  ze  old  stand- 
by, as  you  Americans  say — the  good  old  harbour 
to  which  you  will  come  at  last  when  tired  of  ze 
storms  outside !  " 

"  Your  humility  is  a  new  trait,"  said  Florence. 

"  It's  none  ze  less  real  because  it  is  often  hid," 
said  the  count.  "  I  watch  you  very  closely, 
more  closely  than  perhaps  you  even  think.  You 
have  all  the  heartlessness  of  youth  and  health 
and  beauty.  I  would  be  wrong  to  put  my  one 
little  piece  of  money  on  the  table  and  lose  all; 
and  so  I  save  and  save,  and  play  ze  only  game 
that  offers  me  the  least  chance — ze  waiting 
game !  " 

"  I  believe  that's  true,"  said  Florence. 

"  Were  I  to  act  ze  distracted  lover,  you  would 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

laugh  in  my  face,"  he  went  on  earnestly. 
"  Were  I  to  propose  and  be  refused,  my  pride 
would  not  let  me — my  instinct  as  gentleman 
would  not  let  me — go  trailing  after  you  with  my 
long  face.  The  idyll  would  be  over.  I  would 
go!" 

"  There  are  times  when  I  think  a  heap  of 
you,"  said  Florence  encouragingly. 

"  Oh,  I  know  so  well  how  it  would  be,"  he 
continued.  "A  week  of  doubt — of  fever;  a 
rain  of  little  notes;  and  then  with  your  good 
clear  honest  Far  Vest  sense  you  would  say :  No, 
mon  cher,  it  is  eempossible !  " 

1  Yes,  I  suppose  I  would,"  said  Florence. 

"  I  would  rather  be  your  friend  all  my  life," 
said  the  count,  "  than  to  be  merely  one  of  the 
rejected.  I  have  no  ambition  to  place  my 
name  on  that  already  great  list.  I  have  never 
yet  asked  a  woman  to  marry  me,  and  when 
I  do  I  care  not  for  the  expectation  of  being 
refused!" 

[65] 


L  O  V  E     THE     FIDDLER 

"  You  are  like  all  Europeans,"  said  Florence, 
"  you  believe  in  a  sure  thing." 

"  My  heart  is  not  on  my  sleeve,"  he  returned, 
"  and  I  value  it  too  highly  to  lose  it  without 
compensation." 

"  It  is  interesting  to  hear  all  your  views,"  said 
Florence.  "  I  am  sure  I  appreciate  the  compli- 
ment highly.  It's  a  new  idea,  this  of  the  wolf 
making  a  confidant  of  the  lamb." 

"  Oh,  my  dear !  "  he  broke  out,  "  I  am  only  a 
poor  devil  holding  back  from  committing  a  great 
stupidity." 

"  Is  that  how  you  describe  marrying  me?" 
she  said  lightly. 

"  Ze  day  will  come,"  he  said,  disregarding 
her  question,  "  I  think  it  will — I  hope  it  will — 
when  you  will  say  to  me :  My  dear  fellow,  I  am 
tired  of  all  this  fictitious  gaiety;  of  all  this  rush 
and  bustle  and  flirtation;  of  this  life  of  fever 
and  emptiness.  I  long  for  peace  and  do  not 
know  where  to  find  it.  I  am  like  a  piece  of 
[66] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

music  to  whom  one  waits  in  vain  for  the  return 
to  the  keynote.  Tell  me  where  to  find  it  or  else 
I  die!" 

"  Rather  forward  of  me  to  say  all  that, 
Count,"  observed  the  girl.  "  But  suppose  I  did 
— what  then?" 

The  count  opened  wide  his  arms. 

"  I  would  answer:  here !  "  he  said. 

V 

Thus  the  bright  days  passed,  amid  animating 
scenes,  with  memories  of  sky  and  cloud  and  noble 
headlands  and  stately,  beautiful  ships.  Like 
two  ocean  sweethearts  the  Minnehaha  and  the 
Pa  quit  a  took  their  restless  way  together,  side  by 
side  in  port,  inseparable  at  sea.  At  night  the 
one  lit  the  other's  road  with  a  string  of  ruby 
lanterns  and  kept  the  pair  in  company  across  the 
dark  and  silent  water.  Their  respective  crews, 
not  behindhand  in  this  splendid  camaraderie  of 
ships,  fraternised  in  wine-shops  and  strolled 
[67] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

through  the  crooked  foreign  streets  arm  in  arm. 
Breton  and  American,  red  cap  and  blue,  sixty  of 
the  one  and  eighty  of  the  other — they  were 
brothers  all  and  cemented  their  friendship  in 
blood  and  gunpowder,  in  tattooed  names,  flags 
and  mottoes,  after  the  time-honoured  and  artless 
manner  of  the  sea. 

In  the  drama  of  life  it  is  often  the  least  im- 
portant actors  who  are  happiest,  and  the  stars 
themselves  are  not  always  to  be  the  most  envied. 
Florence,  torn  between  her  ambition  and  her 
love,  knew  what  it  was  to  toss  all  night  on  her 
sleepless  bed  and  wet  the  pillow  with  her  tears. 
De  Souvary,  who  found  himself  every  day  deeper 
in  the  toils  of  his  ravishing  American,  chafed 
and  struggled  with  unavailing  pangs;  and  as  for 
Frank  Rignold,  he  endured  long  periods  of 
black  depression  as  he  watched  from  afar  the 
steady  progress  of  his  rival's  suit;  and  his  moody 
face  grew  moodier  and  exasperation  rose  within 
him  to  the  rebellion  point. 
[68] 


THE  CHIEF  ENGINEER 
By  September  the  two  yachts  were  lying  in 
Cowes,  and  already  there  was  some  talk  of  win- 
ter plans  and  a  possible  voyage  to  India.  The 
count  was  enthusiastic  about  the  project,  as  he 
was  about  anything  that  could  keep  him  and 
Florence  together,  and  he  had  ordered  a  stack 
of  books  and  spent  hours  at  a  time  with  the  mis- 
tress of  the  Minnehaha  reading  over  Indian 
Ocean  directories  and  plotting  imaginary  courses 
on  the  chart. 

With  the  prospect  of  so  extended  a  trip 
before  him,  Frank  found  much  to  be  done  in 
the  engine-room,  for  their  suggested  cruise 
would  be  likely  to  carry  them  far  out  of  the 
beaten  track,  and  he  had  to  be  prepared  for  all 
contingencies.  A  marine  engine  requires  to  be 
perpetually  tinkered,  and  an  engineer's  duty  is 
not  only  to  run  it,  but  to  make  good  the  little 
defects  and  breakdowns  that  are  constantly  oc- 
curring. Frank  was  a- daily  visitor  at  the  local 
machine-shop,  and  his  business  engagements 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

with  Mr.  Derwent,  the  proprietor,  led  insensibly 
to  others  of  the  social  kind. 

Derwent's  house  was  close  by  his  works,  and 
Frank's  trips  ashore  soon  began  to  take  in  both. 
Derwent  had  a  daughter,  a  black-haired,  black- 
eyed,  pink-cheeked  girl,  named  Cassie,  one  of 
those  vigorous  young  English  beauties  that  men 
would  call  stunning  and  women  bold.  She  did 
not  wait  for  any  preliminaries,  but  straightway 
fell  in  love  with  the  handsome  American  engi- 
neer that  her  father  brought  home.  She  made 
her  regard  so  plain  that  Frank  was  embarrassed, 
and  was  not  a  bit  put  off  at  his  reluctance  to  play 
the  part  she  assigned  to  him. 

"  That's  always  my  luck,"  she  remarked  with 
disarming  candour,  "  a  poor  silly  fool  who 
always  likes  them  that  don't  like  me  and  spurns 
them  that  do !  "  And  then  she  added,  with  a 
laugh,  that  he  ought  to  be  tied  up,  "  for  you  are 
a  cruel  handsome  man,  Frank,  and  my  heart  goes 
pitapat  at  the  very  sight  of  you !  " 

[70] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

She  called  him  Frank  at  the  second  visit ;  and 
at  the  third  seated  herself  on  the  arm  of  his 
chair  and  took  his  hand  and  held  it. 

"  Can't  you  ever  forget  that  girl  in  Yankee- 
land?  "  she  said.  "  She  aint  here,  is  she,  and 
why  shouldn't  you  steal  a  little  harmless  fun? 
There's  men  who'd  give  their  little  finger  to  win 
a  kiss  from  me — and  you  sit  there  so  glum  and 
solemn,  who  could  have  a  bushel  for  the 
asking!" 

For  all  Frank's  devotion  to  Florence  he  could 
not  but  be  flattered  at  being  wooed  in  this  head- 
long fashion.  He  was  only  a  man  after  all,  and 
she  was  the  prettiest  girl  in  port.  He  did  not 
resist  when  she  suddenly  put  her  arms  around 
him  and  pressed  his  head  against  her  bosom, 
calling  him  her  boy  and  her  darling;  but  re- 
mained passive  in  her  embrace,  pleased  and  yet 
ashamed,  and  touched  to  the  quick  with  self- 
contempt. 

"You   mustn't,"   he   said,    freeing   himself. 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

"  Cassie,     it's     wrong — it's     dreadful.       You 
mustn't  think  I  love  you,  because  I  don't." 

*  Yes,  but  I  am  going  to  make  you,"  she 
said  with  splendid  effrontery,  looking  at  her- 
self in  the  glass  and  patting  her  rumpled 
hair.  "  See  what  you  have  done  to  me,  you 
bad  boy!" 

Had  she  been  older  or  more  sophisticated, 
Frank  would  have  been  shocked  at  this  reversal 
of  the  sexes.  But  in  her  self-avowed  and  un- 
ashamed love  for  him  she  was  more  like  a 
child  than  a  woman;  and  her  good-humour  and 
laughter  besides  seemed  somehow  to  belittle  her 
words  and  redeem  the  affair  from  any  serious- 
ness. Frank  tried  to  stay  away,  for  his  con- 
science pricked  him  and  he  did  not  care  to  drift 
into  such  an  unusual  and  ambiguous  relation 
with  Derwent's  handsome  daughter.  But 
Cassie  was  always  on  the  watch  for  him  and  he 
could  not  escape  from  the  machine-works  with- 
out falling  into  one  of  her  ambushes.  She  would 

[72] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

carry  him  off  to  tea,  and  he  never  left  without 
finding  himself  pledged  to  return  in  the  evening. 
In  his  loneliness,  hopelessness,  and  desolation  he 
found  it  dangerously  sweet  to  be  thus  petted 
and  sought  after.  Cassie  made  no  demands  of 
him  and  acquiesced  with  apparent  cheerfulness 
in  the  implication  that  he  loved  another  woman. 
She  humbly  accepted  the  little  that  was  left  over, 
and,  though  she  wept  many  hot  tears  in  secret, 
outwardly  at  least  she  never  rebelled  or  re- 
proached him.  She  knew  that  to  do  either 
would  be  to  lose  him.  In  fact  she  made  it  very 
easy  for  him  to  come,  and  gave  up  her  girlish 
treasure  of  affection  without  any  hope  of  reward. 
Frank,  by  degrees,  discovered  a  wonderful  com- 
fort in  being  with  her.  It  was  balm  to  his 
wounds  and  bruises;  and,  like  someone  who  had 
long  been  out  in  the  cold,  he  warmed  himself, 
so  to  speak,  before  that  bright  fire,  and  found 
himself  growing  drowsy  and  contented. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  all  this  went  on 

[73] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

unremarked,  or  that  in  the  gossip  of  the  yacht 
Frank  and  Cassie  Derwent  did  not  come  in  for 
a  considerable  share  of  attention.  It  passed 
from  the  officers'  mess  to  the  saloon,  and  Flor- 
ence bit  her  lip  with  anger  and  jealousy  when  the 
joke  went  round  of  the  chief  engineer's  "  infatua- 
tion." In  revenge  she  treated  Frank  more 
coldly  than  ever,  and  went  out  of  her  way  to  be 
agreeable  to  de  Souvary,  especially  when  the 
former  was  at  hand  and  could  be  made  a 
spectator  of  her  lover-like  glances  and  a  warmth 
that  seemed  to  transcend  the  limits  of  ordinary 
friendship.  She  made  herself  utterly  unhappy 
and  Frank  as  well.  The  only  one  of  the  trio 
to  be  pleased  was  the  count. 

She  made  no  objection  when  Frank  asked  her 
permission  to  show  the  ship  to  Derwent  and  his 
daughter. 

4  You  must  be  sure  and  introduce  me,"  she 
said,  with  a  sparkle  of  her  eyes  that  Frank  was 
too  unpresumptuous  to  understand.  "  They  say 

[74] 


THE    CHIEF     ENGINEER 

that  she  is  a  raving  little  beauty  and  that  you  are 
the  happy  man !  " 

Frank  hurriedly  disclaimed  the  honour. 

"  Oh,  no !  "  he  said.  "  But  she  is  really  very 
sweet  and  nice,  and  I  think  we  owe  a  little  atten- 
tion to  her  father." 

"Oh,  her  father!"  said  Florence,  sarcastically 
emphasising  the  word. 

"  I  hope  you  don't  think  there  is  anything  in 
it,"  he  exclaimed  very  anxiously.  "  I  suppose 
there  has  been  some  tittle-tattle — I  can  read  it 
in  your  face — but  there's  not  a  word  of  truth  in 
it,  not  a  word,  I  assure  you." 

"  I  don't  care  the  one  way  or  other,  Frank," 
she  said.  "You  needn't  explain  so  hard.  What 
does  it  matter  to  me,  anyway?"  and  with  that 
she  turned  away  to  cordially  greet  the  count  as 
he  came  aboard. 

The  two  women  met  in  the  saloon.  Florence 
at  once  assumed  the  great  lady,  the  heiress,  the 
condescending  patrician;  Cassie  flushed  and 

[75] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

trembled;  and  in  a  buzz  of  commonplaces  the 
stewards  served  tea  while  the  two  women 
covertly  took  each  other's  measure.  Florence 
grew  ashamed  of  her  own  behaviour,  and,  un- 
bending a  little,  tried  to  put  her  guests  at  ease 
and  led  Cassie  on  to  talk.  Then  it  came  out 
about  the  dance  that  Derwent  and  his  daughter 
were  to  give  the  following  night. 

"  Frank  and  me  have  been  arranging  the 
cotillon,"  said  Cassie,  and  then  she  turned  pink 
to  her  ears  at  having  called  him  by  his  first 
name  before  all  those  people.  "  I  mean  Mr. 
Rignold,"  she  added,  amid  everyone's  laughter 
and  her  own  desperate  confusion.  Florence's 
laughter  rang  out  as  gaily  as  anyone's,  and  ap- 
parently as  unaffectedly,  and  she  rallied  Cassie 
with  much  good  humour  on  her  slip. 

"So  it's  Frank  already!"  she  exclaimed. 
"  Oh,  Miss  Derwent !  don't  you  trust  this 
wicked  chief  of  mine.  He  is  a  regular  heart' 
breaker!" 


THE    CHIEF     ENGINEER 

Cassie  cried  when  Frank  and  she  returned 
home  and  sat  together  on  the  porch. 

"  She's  a  proud,  haughty  minx,"  she  burst  out, 
"  and  you  love  her— and  as  for  me  I  might  as 
well  drown  myself." 

Frank  attempted  to  comfort  her. 

"  Oh,  you  needn't  try  to  blind  me,"  she  said 
bitterly.  "  I — I  thought  it  was  a  girl  in 
America,  Frank,  a. girl  like  me — just  common 
and  poor  and  perhaps  not  as  nice  as  I  am.  And 
you  know  she  wouldn't  wipe  her  feet  on  you," 
she  went  on  viciously — "  she  so  grand  with  her 
yachts  and  her  counts  and  '  Oh,  I  think  I'll  run 
over  to  Injya  for  the  winter,  or  maybe  it's 
Cairo  or  the  Nile,'  says  she !  What  kind  of  a 
chance  have  you  got  there,  Frank,  you  in  your 
greasy  over-alls  and  working  for  her  wages? 
Won't  you  break  your  heart  just  like  I  am 
breaking  mine,  I  that  would  sell  the  clothes  off 
my  back  for  you  and  follow  you  all  over  the 
world!" 

[77] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

Frank  protested  that  she  was  mistaken ;  that  it 
wasn't  Miss  Fenacre  at  all;  that  it  was  absurd 
to  even  think  of  such  a  thing. 

"  Oh,  Frank,  it's  bad  enough  as  it  is  without 
your  lying  to  me,"  she  said,  quite  unconvinced. 
"  You've  set  your  eyes  too  high,  and  unhappiness 
is  all  that  you'll  ever  get  from  the  likes  of  her. 
You're  a  fool  in  your  way  and  I'm  a  fool  in  mine, 
and  maybe  when  she's  married  to  the  count  and 
done  for,  you'll  mind  the  little  girl  that's  waiting 
for  you  in  Cowes !  "  She  took  his  hand  and 
kissed  it,  telling  him  with  a  sob  that  she  would 
ever  remain  single  for  his  sake. 

"  But  I  don't  want  you  to,  Cassie,"  he 
said.  "  You're  talking  like  a  baby.  What's 
the  good  of  waiting  when  I  am  never  coming 
back?" 

"  You  say  that  now,"  she  exclaimed,  "  but  my 
words  will  come  back  to  you  in  Injya  when  you 
grow  tired  of  her  ladyship's  coldness  and  dis- 
dain; and  I'm  silly  enough  to  think  you'll  find 

[78] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

them  a  comfort  to  you  out  there,  with  nothing 
to  do  but  to  think  and  think  and  be  miserable." 

VI 

The  next  day  he  found  Cassie  in  a  more  cheer- 
ful humour  and  excited  about  the  dance.  The 
house  was  all  upset  and  she  was  busy  with  a 
dozen  of  her  girl  friends  in  decorating  the  hall 
and  drawing-room,  taking  up  the  carpets,  ar- 
ranging for  the  supper  and  the  cloakrooms,  and 
immersed  generally  in  the  thousand  and  one 
tasks  that  fall  on  a  hostess-to-be.  Frank  put 
himself  at  her  orders  and  spent  the  better  part  of 
the  afternoon  in  running  errands  and  tacking  up 
flags  and  branches;  and  after  an  hilarious  tea, 
in  the  midst  of  all  the  litter  and  confusion,  he 
went  back  to  the  ship  somewhat  after  five 
o'clock.  As  he  was  pulled  out  in  a  shore  boat 
he  was  surprised  to  pass  a  couple  of  coal 
lighters  coming  from  the  Minnehaha,  and  to  see 
her  winches  busily  hoisting  in  stores  from  a 

[79] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

large  launch  alongside.  He  ran  up  the  ladder, 
and  seeing  the  captain  asked  him  what  was  up. 

"  Sailing  orders,  Chief,"  said  Captain  Landry, 
enjoying  his  amazement.  "  We'll  be  off  the 
ground  in  half  an  hour,  eastward  bound !  " 

"  But  I  wasn't  told  anything,"  cried  Frank. 
"  I  never  got  any  orders." 

"  The  little  lady  said  you  wasn't  to  be  dis- 
turbed," said  the  captain,  "  and  she  took  it  on 
herself  to  order  your  staff  to  go  ahead.  I  guess 
you'll  find  a  pretty  good  head  of  steam 
already!" 

Frank  ran  to  the  side  and  called  back  his  boat, 
giving  the  man  five  shillings  to  take  a  note  at 
once  to  Cassie.  He  had  no  time  for  more  than 
a  few  lines,  but  he  could  not  go  to  sea  without 
at  least  one  word  of  farewell.  They  were  cat- 
ting the  anchor  and  were  already  under  steerage 
way  when  Cassie  came  off  herself  in  a  launch  and 
passed  up  a  letter  directed  to  the  chief  engineer. 
It  reached  him  in  the  engine-room,  where  he, 

[so] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

not  knowing  that  she  was  but  a  few  feet  distant, 
was  spared  the  sight  of  her  pale  and  despairing 
face. 

The  letter  itself  was  almost  incoherent.  She 
knew,  she  said,  whom  she  had  to  thank  for  his 
departure.  That  vixen,  that  hussy,  that  stuck- 
up  minx,  who  treated  him  like  a  dog  and  yet 
grudged  him  to  another,  who,  God  help  her, 
loved  him  too  well  for  her  own  good — it  was 
her  ladyship  she  had  to  thank  for  spoiling  every- 
thing and  carrying  him  away.  Was  he  not  man 
enough  to  assert  himself  and  leave  a  ship  where 
he  was  put  upon  so  awful?  Let  him  ask  her 
mightiness  in  two  words,  yes  or  no;  and  then 
when  he  had  come  down  from  the  clouds  and 
had  learned  the  truth,  poor  silly  fool — then  let 
him  come  back  to  his  Cassie,  who  loved  him  so 
dear,  and  who  (if  she  did  say  it  herself)  had  a 
heart  worth  fifty  of  his  mistress  and  didn't  need 
no  powder  to  set  off  her  complexion.  It  ended 
with  a  piteous  appeal  to  his  compassion  and  be- 
[81] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

sought  him  to  write  to  her  from  the  nearest 
port. 

Frank  sighed  as  he  read  it.  Everything  in 
the  world  seemed  wrong  and  at  cross-purposes. 
Those  who  had  one  thing  invariably  longed  for 
something  else,  and  there  was  no  content  or 
happiness  or  satisfaction  anywhere.  The  better 
off  were  the  acquiescent,  who  took  the  good  and 
the  bad  with  the  same  composure  and  found 
their  only  pleasure  in  their  work.  Best  off  of 
all  were  the  dead  whose  sufferings  were  over. 
But  after  all  it  was  sweet  to  be  loved,  even  if  one 
did  not  love  back,  and  Frank  was  very  tender 
with  the  little  letter  and  put  it  carefully  in  his 
pocket-book.  Yes,  it  was  sweet  to  be  loved. 
He  said  this  over  and  over  to  himself,  and 
wondered  whether  Florence  felt  the  same  to 
him  as  he  did  to  Cassie.  It  seemed  to  explain 
so  much.  It  seemed  the  key  to  her  strange 
regard  for  him.  He  asked  himself  whether  it 
could  be  true  that  she  had  wilfully  ordered  the 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

ship  to  sea  in  order  to  prevent  him  going  to  the 
dance.  The  thought  stirred  him  inexpressibly. 
What  other  explanation  was  there  if  this  was 
not  the  one?  And  she  had  deserted  the  count, 
who  was  away  in  London  on  a  day's  business; 
deserted  the  Paquita  at  anchor  in  the  roads! 
He  was  frightened  at  his  own  exultation.  Sup- 
pose he  were  wrong  in  this  surmise !  Suppose 
it  were  just  another  of  her  unaccountable  ca- 
prices ! 

They  ran  down  Channel  at  full  speed  and  at 
night  were  abreast  of  the  Scilly  lights,  driving 
towards  the  Bay  of  Biscay  in  the  teeth  of  an 
Equinoctial  gale.  At  the  behest  of  one  girl 
eighty  men  had  to  endure  the  discomfort  of  a 
storm  at  sea,  and  a  great  steel  ship,  straining  and 
quivering,  was  flung  into  the  perilous  night.  It 
seemed  a  misuse  of  power  that,  at  a  woman's 
whim,  so  many  lives  and  so  noble  and  costly  a 
fabric  could  be  risked — and  risked  for  nothing. 
From  the  captain  on  the  bridge,  dripping  in  his 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

oil-skins,  to  the  coal-passers  and  firemen  below 
who  fed  the  mighty  furnaces,  to  the  cooks  in  the 
galley,  the  engineers,  the  electrician  on  duty,  the 
lookout  man  in  the  bow  clinging  to  the  life-line 
when  the  Mlnnehaha  buried  her  nose  out  of 
sight — all  these  perforce  had  to  endure  and  suf- 
fer at  Florence's  bidding  without  question  or 
revolt. 

Frank's  elation  passed  and  left  him  in  a  bitter 
humour  towards  her.  It  was  not  right,  he  said 
to  himself,  not  right  at  all.  She  ought  to  show 
a  little  consideration  for  the  men  who  had  served 
her  so  well  and  faithfully.  Besides,  it  was  un- 
worthy of  her  to  betray  such  pettiness  and  spoil 
Cassie's  dance.  He  felt  for  the  girl's  humilia- 
tion, and,  though  not  in  love  with  her,  he  was 
conscious  of  a  sentiment  that  hated  to  see  her 
hurt.  He  would  not  accept  Florence's  invitation 
to  dine  in  the  saloon,  sending  word  that  he  had  a 
headache  and  begged  to  be  excused;  and  after 
dinner,  when  she  sought  him  out  on  deck  and 


THE     CHIEF    ENGINEER 

tried  to  make  herself  very  sweet  to  him,  he  was 
purposely  reserved  and  distant,  and  took  the 
first  opportunity  to  move  away.  He  was  angry, 
disheartened,  and  resentful,  all  in  one. 

Towards  eleven  o'clock  at  night  as  Frank  was 
in  the  engine-room,  moodily  turning  over  these 
reflections  in  his  mind  and  listening  to  the  race  of 
the  screws  as  again  and  again  they  were  lifted  out 
of  the  water  and  strained  the  shafts  and  engines 
to  the  utmost,  he  was  surprised  to  see  Florence 
herself  descending  the  steel  ladder  into  that  close 
atmosphere  of  oil  and  steam.  He  ran  to  help 
her  down,  and  taking  her  arm  led  her  to  one  side, 
where  they  might  be  out  of  the  way.  Here,  in 
the  glare  of  the  lanterns,  he  looked  down  into 
her  face  and  thought  again  how  beautiful  she 
was.  Her  cheek  was  wet  with  spray,  and  her 
hair  was  tangled  and  glistening  beneath  her  little 
yachting  cap.  She  seemed  to  exhale  a  breath  of 
the  storm  above  and  bring  down  with  her  some- 
thing of  the  gale  itself.  She  held  fast  to  Frank 
[85] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

as  the  ship  laboured  and  plunged,  smiling  as 
their  eyes  met. 

"  You  are  the  last  person  I  expected  down 
here,"  said  Frank. 

"  I  was  beginning  to  get  afraid,"  she  returned. 
"  It's  blowing  terribly,  Frank — and  I  thought, 
if  anything  happened,  I'd  like  to  be  with  you !  " 

"  Oh,  we  are  all  right !  "  said  Frank,  his  pro- 
fessional spirit  aroused.  "  With  twin  screws, 
twin  engines,  and  plenty  of  sea-room — why,  let 
it  blow." 

His  confidence  reassured  her.  He  never  ap- 
peared to  her  so  strong,  so  self-reliant  and  calm 
as  at  that  moment  of  her  incipient  fear. 
Amongst  his  engines  Frank  always  wore  a  mas- 
terful air,  for  he  had  that  instinct  for  machinery 
peculiarly  American,  and  was  competent  almost 
to  the  point  of  genius. 

"  Besides,  I  wanted  to  ask  you  a  question," 
said  Florence.     "  I  had  to  ask  it.     I  couldn't 
sleep  without  asking  it,  Frank." 
[86] 


THE     CHIEF     ENGINEER 

"  I  would  have  come,  if  you  had  sent  for  me," 
he  said. 

"  I  couldn't  wait  for  that,"  she  returned.  "  I 
knew  it  might  be  hard  for  you  to  leave — or  im- 
possible." 

"What  is  it,  Florence?"  he  asked.  The 
name  slipped  out  in  spite  of  him. 

She  looked  at  him  strangely,  her  lustrous  eyes 
wide  open  and  bright  with  her  unsaid  thoughts. 

"Are  you  very  fond  of  her,  Frank?"  she 
asked. 

"Her?  Who?"  he  exclaimed.  "You 
don't  mean  Cassie  Derwent?" 

"  Yes,"  she  said. 

"  Of  course  I'm  fond  of  her,"  he  said. 

"  More  than  you  are  of  me,  Frank?  "  she  per- 
sisted. 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  the  same  sort  of  thing,  Flor- 
ence," he  said.     "  I  never  even  thought  of  com- 
paring you  and  her  together.     Surely  you  know 
that?     Surely  you  understand  that?  " 
[87] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

4  You  used  to — to  love  me  once,  Frank,"  she 
said,  with  a  stifled  sob.  "  Has  she  made  it  any 
less?  Has  she  robbed  me,  Frank?  Have  I 
lost  you  without  knowing  it?  " 

"  No,"  he  said,  "  no,  a  thousand  times,  no!  " 

"  Tell  me  that  you  love  me,  Frank,"  she  burst 
out.  "Tell  me,  tell  me!  "  Then,  as  he  did 
not  answer,  she  went  on  passionately:  "That's 
why  I  went  to  sea,  Frank.  I  was  mad  with 
jealousy.  I  couldn't  give  you  up  to  her.  I 
couldn't  let  her  have  you !  " 

She  pressed  closer  against  him,  and  tiptoeing 
so  as  to  raise  her  mouth  to  his  ear,  she  whis- 
pered: "  I  always  liked  you  better  than  anybody 
else  in  the  world,  Frank.  I  love  you !  I  love 
you!" 

For  the  moment  he  could  not  realise  his  own 
good  fortune.  He  could  do  nothing  but  look 
into  her  eyes.  It  was  her  reproach  for  years 
afterwards  that  she  had  to  kiss  him  first. 

"  I  suppose  it  had  to  come,  Frank,"  she  said. 
[88] 


THE    CHIEF    ENGINEER 

"  I  fought  all  I  could,  but  it  didn't  seem  any 
use!" 

"  It  was  inevitable,"  he  returned  solemnly. 
"  God  made  you  for  me,  and  me  for  you !  " 

"  Amen,"  she  said,  and  in  an  ecstasy  of 
abandonment  whispered  again :  "  I  love  you, 
Frank.  I  love  you !  " 


[89] 


FFRE  NCHES    FIRST 


FFRENCHES     FIRST 

1  SUPPOSE  if  I  had  been  a  hero  of 
romance,  instead  of  an  ordinary  kind  of 
chap,  I  would  have  steamed  in  with  the 
Tallahassee,  fired  a  gun,  and  landed  in  state,  in- 
stead of  putting  on  my  old  clothes  and  sneaking 
into  the  county  on  an  automobile.  However,  I 
did  my  little  best,  so  far  as  making  a  date  with 
Babcock  was  concerned,  and  as  it  turned  out  in 
the  end  I  dare  say  the  hero  of  romance  wouldn't 
have  managed  it  much  better  himself.  It  was 
late  when  I  got  into  Forty  Fyles  (as  the  village 
was  called),  and  put  up  at  one  of  those  quaint, 
low-raftered,  bulging  old  inns  which  still  remain, 
thank  Heaven,  here  and  there,  in  the  less 
travelled  parts  of  England.  If  I  were  dusty 
and  dirty  when  I  arrived,  you  ought  to  have  seen 
me  the  next  day  after  a  two-hours'  job  with  the 
differential  gears.  By  the  time  I  had  got  the 

[93] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

trouble  to  rights,  and  had  puffed  up  and  down 
the  main  street  to  make  assurance  sure  and  aston- 
ish the  natives  (who  came  out  two  hundred 
strong  and  cheered),  I  was  as  frowsy,  unkempt, 
and  dilapidated  an  American  as  ever  drove  a 
twelve  H.  P.  Panhard  through  the  rural  lanes  of 
Britain.  Indeed,  I  was  so  shocked  at  my  own  ap- 
pearance when  I  looked  at  myself  in  the  glass 
(such  a  wiggly  old  glass  that  showed  one  in 
streaks  like  bacon)  that  I  went  down  to  the  dra- 
per's and  tried  to  buy  a  new  set  out.  But  as  they 
had  nothing  except  cheap  tripper  suits  for  pig- 
mies (I  stood  six  feet  in  my  stockings  and  had 
played  full  back  at  college)  and  fishermen's 
clothes  of  an  ancient  Dutch  design,  I  forebore  to 
waste  my  good  dollars  in  making  a  guy  of  my- 
self, and  decided  to  remain  as  I  was. 

Then,  as  I  was  sitting  in  the  bar  and  asking 
the  potman  the  best  way  to  get  to  Castle  Fyles, 
it  suddenly  came  over  me  that  it  was  the  Fourth 
of  July,  and  that,  recreant  as  I  was,  I  had  come 

[94] 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 

near  forgetting  the  event  altogether.  I  started 
off  again  down  the  main  street  to  discover  some 
means  of  raising  a  noise,  and  after  a  good  deal 
of  searching  I  managed  to  procure  several  hand- 
fuls  of  strange  whitey  fire-crackers  the  size  of 
cigars  and  a  peculiar  red  package  that  the  shop- 
keeper called  a  "  Haetna  Volcano."  He  said 
that  for  four  and  eightpence  one  couldn't  find  its 
match  in  Lunnon  itself,  and  obligingly  took  off 
twopence  when  I  pointed  out  Vesuvius  hadn't  a 
fuse.  With  the  crackers  in  my  pocket  and  the 
volcano  under  my  arm  I  set  forth  in  the  pleasant 
summer  morning  to  walk  to  Castle  Fyles,  having 
an  idea  to  rest  by  the  way  and  celebrate  the 
Fourth  in  the  very  heart  of  the  hereditary  enemy. 
The  road,  as  is  so  often  the  case  in  England, 
ran  between  high  stone  walls  and  restrained  the 
wayfarer  from  straying  into  the  gentlemen's 
parks  on  either  hand.  The  sun  shone  overhead 
with  the  fierce  heat  of  a  British  July;  and  to 
make  matters  worse  in  my  case,  I  seemed  to  be 

[95] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

the  loadstone  of  what  traffic  was  in  progress  on 
the  highway.  A  load  of  hay  stuck  to  me  with 
obstinate  -determination;  if  I  walked  slowly, 
the  hay  lagged  beside  me;  if  I  quickened  my 
pace,  the  hay  whipped  up  his  horses;  when  I 
rested  and  mopped  my  brow,  the  hay  rested  and 
mopped  its  brow.  Then  there  were  tramps  of 
various  kinds:  a  Punch  and  Judy  show  on  the 
march ;  swift  silent  bicyclists  who  sped  past  in  a 
flurry  of  dust;  local  gentry  riding  cock-horses 
(no  doubt  to  Banbury  Crosses)  ;  local  gentry  in 
dogcarts;  local  gentry  in  closed  carriages  going 
to  a  funeral,  and  apparently  (as  seen  through 
the  windows)  very  hot  and  mournful  and  per- 
spiring; an  antique  clergyman  in  an  antique  gig 
who  gave  me  a  tract  and  warned  me  against 
drink;  a  char-a-bancs  filled  to  bursting  with  the 
True  Blue  Constitutional  Club  of  East  Pigley — 
such  at  least  was  the  inscription  on  a  streaming 
banner — who  swung  past  waving  their  hats  and 
singing  "  Our  Boarder's  such  a  Nice  Young 

[96] 


FFRENCHES     FIRST 

Man  " ;  then  some  pale  aristocratic  children  in  a 
sort  of  perambulating  clothes-basket  drawn  by  a 
hairy  mite  of  a  pony,  who  looked  at  me  dis- 
approvingly, as  though  I  hadn't  honestly  come 
by  the  volcano;  then — but  why  go  on  with  the 
never-ending  procession  of  British  pilgrims  who 
straggled  out  at  just  sufficient  intervals  to  keep 
between  them  a  perpetual  eye  on  my  movements 
and  prevent  me  from  celebrating  the  birth  of 
freedom  in  any  kind  of  privacy.  At  last,  get- 
ting desperate  at  this  espionage  and  thinking 
besides  I  could  make  a  shorter  cut  towards 
Castle  Fyles,  I  clambered  over  an  easy  place  in 
the  left-hand  wall  and  dropped  into  the  shade  of 
a  magnificent  park.  Here,  at  least,  whatever 
the  risk  of  an  outraged  law  (which  I  had  been 
patronisingly  told  was  even  stricter  than  that  of 
the  Medes  and  Persians),  I  seemed  free  to  wan- 
der unseen  and  undetected,  and  accordingly 
struck  a  course  under  the  oaks  that  promised  in 
time  to  bring  me  out  somewhere  near  the  sea. 
[97] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

Dipping  into  a  little  dell,  where  in  the  per- 
fection of  its  English  woodland  one  might  have 
thought  to  meet  Robin  Hood  himself,  or  startle 
Little  John  beside  a  fallen  deer,  I  looked  care- 
fully about,  got  out  my  pale  crackers,  and  won- 
dered whether  I  dared  begin.  It  is  always  an 
eerie  sensation  to  be  alone  in  the  forest,  what 
with  the  whispering  leaves  overhead,  the  stir 
and  hum  of  insects,  the  rustle  of  ghostly  foot- 
falls, and  (in  my  case)  the  uneasy  sense  of  green- 
liveried  keepers  sneaking  up  at  one  through  the 
clumps  of  gorse.  However,  I  was  not  the  man 
to  belie  the  blood  of  Revolutionary  heroes  and 
meanly  carry  my  unexploded  crackers  beyond 
the  scene  of  danger,  so  I  remembered  the  brave 
days  of  old  and  touched  a  whitey  off.  It  burst 
with  the  roar  of  a  cannon  and  reverberated 
through  the  glades  like  the  broadside  of  a  man- 
of-war.  It  took  me  a  good  five  minutes  before 
I  had  the  courage  to  detonate  another,  which, 
for  better  security,  I  did  this  time  under  my  hat. 

[98] 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 

I  am  not  saying  it  did  the  hat  any  good,  but  it 
seemed  safer  and  less  deafening,  and  I  accord- 
ingly went  on  in  this  manner  until  there  were 
only  about  three  whiteys  left  between  me  and 
Vesuvius,  which  I  kept  back,  in  accordance  with 
tradition,  for  one  big  triumphant  bang  at  the 
end. 

I  was  in  the  act  of  touching  my  cigar  towhitey 
number  three, — on  my  knees,  I  remember;  and 
trying  to  arrange  my  hat  so  as  to  get  the  most 
muffling  for  the  least  outlay  of  burned  felt,  when 
the  branches  in  front  of  me  parted  and  I  looked 
up  to  see — well,  simply  the  most  beautiful 
woman  in  the  world,  regarding  me  with  astonish- 
ment and  anger.  She  was  about  twenty,  some- 
what above  the  medium  height,  and  her  eyes 
were  of  a  lovely  flashing  blue  that  seemed  in  the 
intensity  of  her  indignation  to  positively  emit 
sparks — altogether  the  most  exquisitely  radiant 
and  glorious  creature  that  man  was  ever  privi- 
leged to  gaze  upon. 

[99] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

"  How  dare  you  let  off  fireworks  in  this 
park?"  she  said,  in  a  voice  like  clotted 
cream. 

I  rose  in  some  confusion. 

"  Go  directly,"  she  said,  "  or  I'll  report  you 
and  have  you  summonsed !  " 

"  I  have  only  two  more  crackers  and  this 
volcano,"  I  said  protestingly.  "  Surely  you 
would  not  mind " 

"  Don't  be  insolent,"  she  said,  "  or  I  shall 
have  no  compunction  in  setting  my  dog  on  you." 

I  looked  down,  and  there,  sure  enough,  rolling 
a  yellow  eye  and  showing  his  fangs  at  me,  was  a 
sort  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  bloodhound  only 
waiting  to  begin. 

'  The  fact  is,"  I  said,  speaking  slowly,  so  as 
to  emphasise  the  fact  that  I  was  a  gentleman, 
"  I  am  an  American;  to-day  is  our  national  holi- 
day; and  we  make  it  everywhere  our  practice 
to  celebrate  it  with  fireworks.  I  would  have 
done  so  in  the  road,  but  the  island  seemed  so 
[  100] 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 
crowded  this  morning  I  couldn't  find  an  undis- 
turbed place  outside  the  park." 

Beauty  was  obviously  mollified  by  my  tone 
and  respectful  address. 

"  Please  leave  the  park  directly,"  she  said. 

I  put  the  crackers  in  my  pocket,  took  up  my 
hat,  placed  the  Haetna  Volcano  under  my  arm, 
and  stood  there,  ready  to  go. 

"  Accept  my  apologies,"  I  said.  "  Whatever 
my  fault,  at  least  no  discourtesy  was  intended." 

We  looked  at  each  other,  and  Beauty's  face 
relaxed  into  something  like  a  smile. 

"  Just  give  me  one  more  minute  for  my  vol- 
cano," I  pleaded. 

"You  seem  very  polite,"  she  returned. 
"  Yes,  you  can  set  it  off,  if  that  will  be  any  satis- 
faction to  you." 

"  It  '11  be  a  whole  lot,"  I  said,  "  and  since 
you're  so  kind  perhaps  you'll  let  me  include  the 
crackers  as  well?" 

Then  she  began  to  laugh,  and  the  sweetest 
[101] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

thing  about  it  was  that  she  didn't  want  to  laugh 
a  bit  and  blushed  the  most  lovely  pink,  as  she 
broke  out  again  and  again  until  the  woods  fairly 
rang.  And  as  I  laughed  too — for  really  it  was 
most  absurd — it  was  as  good  as  a  scene  in  a  play. 
And  so,  while  she  held  Legree's  dog,  whom  the 
sound  inflamed  to  frenzy,  I  popped  off  the 
crackers  and  dropped  my  cigar  into  Vesuvius. 
I  tell  you  he  was  worth  four  and  eightpence, 
and  the  man  was  right  when  he  said  there  wasn't 
his  match  in  London.  I  doubt  if  there  was  his 
match  anywhere  for  being  plumb-full  of  red 
balls  and  green  balls  and  blue  balls  and  crimson 
stars  and  fizzlegigs  and  whole  torrents  of  tiny 
crackers  and  chase-me-quicks,  and  when  you 
about  thought  he  was  never  going  to  stop  he 
shot  up  a  silver  spray  and  a  gold  spray  and 
wound  up  with  a  very  considerable  decent-sized 
bust. 

"  I  must  thank  you  for  your  good  nature,"  I 
said  to  the  young  lady. 

[  102] 


FFRENCHES     FIRST 

"  Are  you  a  typical  American?  "  she  asked. 

"  Oh,  so  so/'  I  returned.  "  There  are  heaps 
like  me  in  New  York." 

"  And  do  they  all  do  this  on  the  Fourth  of 
July?  "she  asked. 

"  Every  last  one !  "  I  said. 

"Fancy!  "she  said. 

"  In  America,"  I  said,  "  when  a  man  has  re- 
ceived one  favour  he  is  certain  to  make  it  the 
stepping-stone  for  another.  Won't  you  permit 
me  to  walk  across  the  park  to  Castle  Fyles?  " 

"  Castle  Fyles?"  she  repeated,  with  a  little 
note  of  curiosity  in  her  girlish  voice.  "  Then 
don't  you  know  that  this  is  Fyles  Park?  " 

"  Can't  say  I  did,"  I  returned.  "  But  I  am 
delighted  to  hear  it." 

"Why  are  you  delighted  to  hear  it?"  she 
asked,  making  me  feel  more  than  ever  like  an 
escaped  lunatic. 

4  This  is  the  home  of  my  ancestors,"  I  said, 
"  and  it  makes  me  glad  to  think  they  amount  to 

[103] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

something — own  real  estate — and  keep  their 
venerable  heads  above  water." 

"  So  this  is  the  home  of  your  ancestors,"  she 
said. 

"  It's  holy  ground  to  me,"  I  said. 

"  Fancy!  "  she  exclaimed. 

"  At  least  I  think  it  is,"  I  went  on,  "  though 
we  haven't  any  proofs  beyond  the  fact  that 
Fyles  has  always  been  a  family  name  with  us 
back  to  the  Colonial  days.  I'm  named  Fyles 
myself — Fyles  ffrench — and  we,  like  the  Castle 
people — have  managed  to  retain  our  little  f 
throughout  the  ages." 

She  looked  at  me  so  incredulously  that  I 
handed  her  my  card. 

Mr.  Fyles  ffrench, 
Knickerbocker  Club. 

She  turned  it  over  in  her  fingers,  regarding 
me  at  the  same  time  with  flattering  curiosity. 
"How    do    you   do,    kinsman?"    she    said, 
[104] 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 

holding    out   her   hand.      "  Welcome    to    old 

England!" 

'     I  took  her  little  hand  and  pressed  it. 

"  I  am  the  daughter  of  the  house,"  she  ex- 
plained, "  and  I'm  named  Fyles  too,  though 
they  usually  call  me  Verna." 

"  And  the  little  f,  of  course,"  I  said. 

"  Just  like  yours,"  she  returned.  "  There 
may  be  some  capital  F's  in  the  family,  but  we 
wouldn't  acknowledge  them !  " 

"  What  a  fellow-feeling  that  gives  one !  "  I 
said.  "  At  school,  at  college,  in  business,  in  the 
war  with  Spain  when  I  served  on  the  Dixie,  my 
life  has  been  one  long  struggle  to  preserve  that 
little  f  against  a  capital  F  world.  I  remember 
saying  that  to  a  chum  the  day  we  sank  Cervera, 
4  If  I  am  killed,  Bill,'  I  said,  '  see  that  they  don't 
capital  F  me  on  the  scroll  of  fame ! ' 

"  A  true  ffrench !  "  exclaimed  Beauty  with 
approval. 

"  As  true  as  yourself,"  I  said. 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

"  Do  you  know  that  I'm  the  last  of  them?  " 
she  said. 

"  You !  "  I  exclaimed.     "  The  last  I  " 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  when  my  father  dies  the 
estates  will  pass  to  my  second  cousin,  Lord 
George  Willoughby,  and  our  branch  of  the 
family  will  become  extinct." 

"  You  fill  me  with  despair,"  I  said. 

"  My  father  never  can  forgive  me  for  being 
a  girl,"  she  said. 

"  I  can,"  I  remarked,  "  even  at  the  risk  of  ap- 
pearing disloyal  to  the  race." 

"  Fyles,"  she  said,  addressing  me  straight  out 
by  my  first  name,  and  with  a  little  air  that  told 
me  plainly  I  had  made  good  my  footing  in  the 
fold,  "  Fyles,  what  a  pity  you  aren't  the  rightful 
heir,  come  from  overseas  with  parchments  and 
parish  registers,  to  make  good  your  claim  before 
the  House  of  Lords." 

"  Wouldn't  that  be  rather  hard  on  you?  "  I 
asked. 

[106] 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 

"  I'd  rather  give  up  everything  than  see  the 
old  place  pass  to  strangers,"  she  said. 

"  But  I'm  a  stranger,"  I  said. 

"  You're  Fyles  ffrench,"  she  exclaimed,  "  and 
a  man,  and  you'd  hand  the  old  name  down  and 
keep  the  estate  together." 

"  And  guard  the  little  f  with  the  last  drop  of 
my  blood,"  I  said. 

"  Ah,  well !  "  she  said,  with  a  little  sigh,  "  the 
world's  a  disappointing  place  at  best,  and  I  sup- 
pose it  serves  us  right  for  centuries  of  conceit 
about  ourselves." 

"  That  at  least  will  never  die,"  I  observed. 
"  The  American  branch  will  see  to  that  part 
of  it." 

"  It's  a  pity,  though,  isn't  it?  "  she  said. 

"  Well,"  I  said,  "  when  a  family  has  been 
carrying  so  much  dog  for  a  thousand  years,  I 
suppose  in  common  fairness  it's  time  to  give  way 
for  another." 

"  What  is  carrying  dog?  "  she  said. 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

"  It's  American,"  I  returned,  "  for  thinking 
yourself  better  than  anybody  else !  " 

"  Fancy !  "  she  said,  and  then  with  a  beautiful 
smile  she  took  my  hand  and  rubbed  it  against  the 
hound's  muzzle. 

"  You  mustn't  growl  at  him,  Olaf,"  she  said. 
"He's  a  ffrench;  he's  one  of  us;  and  he  has 
come  from  over  the  sea  to  make  friends." 

"  You  can't  turn  me  out  of  the  park  after 
that,"  I  said,  in  spite  of  a  very  dubious  lick  from 
the  noble  animal,  who,  possibly  because  he 
couldn't  read  and  hadn't  seen  my  card,  was  still 
a  prey  to  suspicion. 

"  I  am  going  to  take  you  back  to  the  castle 
myself,"  she  said,  "  and  we'll  spend  the  day 
going  all  over  it,  and  I  shall  introduce  you  to  my 
father — Sir  Fyles — when  he  returns  at  five  from 
Ascot." 

"  I  could  ask  for  nothing  better,"  I  said, 
"  though  I  don't  want  to  make  myself  a  burden 
to  you.  And  then,"  I  went  on,  a  little  uncer- 
[108] 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 

tain  how  best  to  express  myself,  "  you  are  so 
queer  in  England  about — about " 

"  Proprieties,"  she  said,  giving  the  word 
which  I  hesitated  to  use.  "  Oh,  yes !  I  suppose  I 
oughtn't  to;  indeed,  it's  awful,  and  there'll  be 
lunch  too,  Fyles,  which  makes  it  twice  as  bad. 
But  to-day  I'm  going  to  be  American  and  do 
just  what  I  like." 

"  I  thought  I  ought  to  mention  it,"  I  said. 

"  Objection  overruled,"  she  returned. 
"  That's  what  they  used  to  say  in  court  when  my 
father  had  his  famous  right-of-way  case  with 
Lord  Piffle  of  Doom;  and  from  what  I  remem- 
ber there  didn't  seem  any  repartee  to  it." 

"  There  certainly  isn't  one  from  me,"  I  said. 

"  Let's  go,"  she  said. 

There  didn't  seem  any  end  to  that  park,  and 
we  walked  and  walked  and  rested  once  or  twice 
under  the  deep  shade,  and  took  in  a  mouldy 
pavilion  in  white  marble  with  broken  windows, 
anr1  a  Temple  of  Love  that  dated  back  to  the 
[109] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

sixteenth  century,  and  rowed  on  an  ornamental 
water  in  a  real  gondola  that  leaked  like  sixty, 
and  landed  on  a  rushy  island  where  there  was  a 
sun-dial  and  a  stone  seat  that  the  Druids  or 
somebody  had  considerately  placed  there  in  the 
year  one,  and  talked  of  course,  and  grew  con- 
fidential, until  finally  I  was  calling  her  Verna 
(which  was  her  pet  name)  and  telling  her  how 
the  other  fellow  had  married  my  best  girl,  while 
she  spoke  most  beautifully  and  sensibly  about 
love,  and  the  way  the  old  families  were  dying 
out  because  they  had  set  greater  store  on  their 
lands  than  on  their  hearts,  and  altogether  with 
what  she  said  and  what  I  said,  and  what  was 
understood,  we  passed  from  acquaintance  to 
friendship,  and  from  friendship  to  the  verge  of 
something  even  nearer.  Even  the  Uncle  Tom 
hound  fell  under  the  spell  of  our  new-found 
intimacy  and  condescended  to  lick  my  hand  of 
his  own  volition,  which  Verna  said  he  had  never 
done  before  except  to  the  butcher,  and  winked  a 
[no] 


FFRENCHES     FIRST 

bloodshot  eye  when  I  remarked  he  was  too  big 
for  the  island  and  ought  to  go  back  with  me  to  a 
country  nearer  his  size. 

By  the  time  we  had  reached  the  cliffs  and 
began  to  perceive  the  high  grey  walls  of  the 
castle  in  the  distance,  Verna  and  I  were  faster 
friends  than  ever,  and  anyone  seeing  us  together 
would  have  thought  we  had  known  each  other 
all  our  lives.  I  felt  more  and  more  happy  to 
think  I  had  met  her  first  in  this  unconventional 
way,  for  as  the  castle  loomed  up  closer  and  we 
passed  gardeners  and  keepers  and  jockeys  with  a 
string  of  race-horses  out  for  exercise,  I  felt  that 
my  pretty  companion  was  constrained  by  the 
sight  of  these  obsequious  faces  and  changing  by 
gradations  into  what  she  really  was,  the  daugh- 
ter of  the  castle  and  by  right  of  blood  one  of  the 
great  ladies  of  the  countryside. 

The  castle  itself  was  a  tremendous  old  pile, 
built  on  a  rocky  peninsula  and  surrounded  on 
three  sides  by  the  waters  of  Appledore  Harbour. 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

It  lay  so  as  to  face  the  entrance,  which  Verna 
told  me  was  commanded — or  rather  had  been  in 
years  past — by  the  guns  of  a  half-moon  battery 
that  stood  planted  on  a  sort  of  third-story  ter- 
race. It  was  all  towers  and  donjons  and  ram- 
parts, and  might,  in  its  mediaeval  perfection, have 
been  taken  bodily  out  of  one  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  novels.  Verna  and  I  had  lunch  together 
in  a  perfectly  gorgeous  old  hall,  with  beams  and 
carved  panelling  and  antlers,  and  a  fireplace 
you  could  have  roasted  an  ox  in,  and  rows  of 
glistening  suits  of  armour  which  the  original 
ffrenches  had  worn  when  they  had  first  started 
the  family  in  life — and  all  this,  if  you  please, 
t&te-&-t£tewith  a  woman  who  seemed  to  get  more 
beautiful  every  minute  I  gazed  at  her,  and  who 
smiled  back  at  me  and  called  me  Fyles,  to  the 
stupefaction  of  three  noiseless  six-footers  in 
silk  stockings.  Disapproving  six-footers,  too, 
whose  gimlet  eyes  seemed  to  pierce  my  back 
as  they  sized  up  my  clothes,  which,  as  I  said 

[112] 


FFRENCHES  FIRST 
before,  had  suffered  not  a  little  by  my  trip,  and 
my  collar,  which  I'll  admit  straight  out  wasn't 
up  to  a  castle  standard,  and  the  undeniable  stain 
of  machine-oil  on  my  cuffs  which  I  had  got  that 
morning  in  putting  the  machine  to  rights.  You 
ought  to  have  seen  the  man  that  took  my  hat, 
which  he  did  with  the  air  of  a  person  receiving 
pearls  and  diamonds  on  a  golden  platter,  and 
smudged  his  lordly  fingers  with  the  grime  of  my 
Fourth  of  July.  And  that  darling  of  a  girl, 
who  never  noticed  my  discomfiture,  but  whose 
eyes  sparkled  at  times  with  a  hidden  merriment 
— shall  I  ever  forget  her  as  she  sat  there  and 
helped  me  to  mutton-chops  from  simply  price- 
less old  Charles  the  First  plate ! 

We  had  black  coffee  together  in  a  window- 
seat  overlooking  the  harbour  and  the  ships,  and 
she  asked  me  a  lot  of  questions  about  the  war 
with  Spain  and  my  service  in  the  Dixie.  She 
never  moved  a  muscle  when  it  came  out  I  had 
been  a  quartermaster,  though  I  could  feel  she 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

was  astounded  at  my  being  but  a  shade  above  a 
common  seaman,  and  not,  as  she  had  taken  it 
for  granted,  a  commissioned  officer.  I  was  too 
proud  to  explain  over-much,  or  to  tell  her  I  had 
gone  in,  as  so  many  of  my  friends  had  done,  from 
a  strong  sense  of  duty  and  patriotism  at  the  time 
of  my  country's  need,  and  consequently  allowed 
her  to  get  a  very  wrong  idea,  I  suppose,  about 
my  state  in  life  and  position  in  the  world.  In- 
deed, I  was  just  childish  enough  to  get  a  trifle 
wounded,  and  let  her  add  misconception  to  mis- 
conception out  of  a  silly  obstinacy. 

"  But  what  do  you  do,"  she  asked,  "  now  that 
the  war  is  over  and  youVe  taken  away  every- 
thing from  the  poor  Spaniards  and  left  the 
Navy?" 

"  Work,"  I  said. 

"  What  kind  of  work?  "  she  asked. 

"Oh,  in  an  office!  "  I  said.  (I  didn't  tell 
her  I  was  the  Third  Vice  President  of  the 
Amalgamated  Copper  Company,  with  a  twenty- 

[114] 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 

story  building  on  lower  Broadway.  Wild 
horses  couldn't  have  wrung  it  out  of  me  then.) 

"  You're  too  nice  for  an  office,"  she  said, 
looking  at  me  so  sweetly  and  sadly.  '  You 
ought  to  be  a  gentleman  1  " 

"  Oh,  dear !  "  I  exclaimed,  "  I  hope  I  am  that, 
even  if  I  do  grub  along  in  an  office."  I  wish  my 
partners  could  have  heard  me  say  that.  Why,  I 
have  a  private  elevator  of  my  own  and  a 
squash-court  on  the  roof ! 

"  Of  course,  I  don't  mean  that,"  she  went  on 
quickly,  "  but  like  us,  I  mean,  with  a  castle  and  a 
place  in  society " 

"  I  have  a  sort  of  little  picayune  place  in  New 
York,"  I  interrupted.  "  I  don't  sleep  in  the 
office,  you  know.  At  night  I  go  out  and  see 
my  friends  and  sometimes  they  invite  me  to 
dinner." 

She  looked  at  me  more  sadly  than  ever.  I 
don't  believe  humour  was  Verna's  strong  suit 
anyway, — not  American  humour,  at  least, — 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

for  she  not  only  believed  what  I  said,  but  more 
too. 

"  I  must  speak  to  Papa  about  you,"  she  said. 

"What  will  he  do  ?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  help  you  along,  you  know,"  she  said; 
"  ffrenches  always  stand  together;  it's  a  family 
trait,  though  it's  dying  out  now  for  lack  of 
ffrenches.  You  know  our  family  motto?  "  she 
went  on. 

"  I'm  afraid  I  don't,"  I  said. 

"  '  ffrenches  first! '  "  she  returned. 

I  had  to  laugh. 

"  We've  lived  up  to  it  in  America,"  I  said. 

"  Papa  is  quite  a  power  in  the  City,"  she  said. 

"  I  thought  he  was  a  gentleman,"  I  replied. 

"  Everybody  dabbles  in  business  nowadays," 
she  returned,  not  perceiving  the  innuendo.  "  I 
am  sure  Papa  ought  to  know  all  about  it  from 
the  amount  of  money  he  has  lost." 

"  Perhaps  his  was  a  case  of  ffrenches  last!  " 
I  said. 

[116] 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 

"  Still,  he  knows  all  the  influential  people,1' 
she  continued,  "  and  it  would  be  so  easy  for  him 
to  get  you  a  position  over  here." 

"  That  would  be  charming,"  I  said. 

"  And  then  I  might  see  you  occasionally,"  she 
said,  with  such  a  little  ring  of  kindness  in  her 
voice  that  for  a  minute  I  felt  a  perfect  brute  for 
deceiving  her.  "  You  could  run  down  here 
from  Saturday  to  Monday,  you  know,  and  on 
Bank  Holidays,  and  in  the  season  you  would 
have  the  entrte  to  our  London  house  and  the 
chance  of  meeting  nice  people !  " 

"  How  jolly!  "I  said. 

"  I  can't  bear  you  to  go  back  to  America,"  she 
said.  "  Now  that  I've  found  you,  I'm  going  to 
keep  you." 

"  I  hate  the  thought  of  going  back  myself,"  I 
said,  and  so  I  did — at  the  thought  of  leaving 
that  angel ! 

"  Then,  you  know,"  she  went  on,  somewhat 
shyly  and  hesitatingly,  "  you  have  such  good 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

manners    and    such    a    good    air,    and    you're 
»> 

"  Don't  mind  saying  handsome,"  I  remarked. 

"  You  really  are  very  nice-looking,"  she  said, 
with  a  seriousness  that  made  me  acutely  un- 
comfortable, "  and  what  with  our  friendship 
and  our  house  open  to  you  and  the  people  you 
could  invite  down  here,  because  I  know  Papa  is 
going  to  go  out  of  his  mind  about  you — he  and 
I  are  always  crazy  about  the  same  people,  you 
know — not  to  speak  of  the  little  f,  there  is  no 
reason,  Fyles,  why  in  the  end  you  shouldn't 
marry  an  awfully  rich  girl  and  set  up  for  your- 
self!" 

"  Thank  you,"  I  said,  "  but  if  it's  all  the  same 
to  you  I  don't  think  I'd  care  to." 

"  I  know  awfully  rich  girls  who  are  pretty 
too,"  she  said,  as  though  forestalling  an  objec- 
tion. 

"  I  do  too,"  I  said,  looking  at  her  so  earnestly 
that  she  coloured  up  to  the  eyes. 
[118] 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 

"  Oh,  I  am  poor!  "  she  said.  "  It's  all  we 
can  do  to  keep  the  place  up.  Besides — be- 
sides  "  And  then  she  stopped  and  looked 

out  of  the  window.  I  saw  I  had  been  a  fool  to  be 
so  personal,  and  I  was  soon  punished  for  my 
presumption,  for  she  rose  to  her  feet  and  said  in 
an  altered  voice  that  she  would  now  show  me  the 
castle. 

As  I  said  before,  it  was  a  tremendous  old 
place.  It  was  a  two-hours'  job  to  go  through  it 
even  as  we  did,  and  then  Verna  said  we  had 
skipped  a  whole  raft  of  things  she  would  let  me 
see  some  other  time.  There  was  a  private 
theatre,  a  chapel  with  effigies  of  cross-legged 
Crusaders,  an  armoury  with  a  thousand  stand 
of  flint-locks,  a  library,  magnificent  state  apart- 
ments with  wonderful  tapestries,  a  suite  of  rooms 
where  they  had  confined  a  mad  ffrench  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  with  the  actual  bloodstains  on 
the  floor  where  he  had  dashed  out  his  poor  silly 
brains  against  the  wall;  a  magazine  with  a  lot 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

of  empty  powder-casks  Cromwell  had  left  there; 
a  vaulted  chamber  for  the  men  of  the  half -moon 
battery ;  a  well  which  was  said  to  have  no  bottom 
and  which  had  remained  unused  for  a  hundred 
years,  because  a  wicked  uncle  had  thrown  the 
rightful  heir  into  it;  and  slimy,  creepy-crawly 
dungeons  with  chains  for  your  hands  and  feet; 
and  cachettes  where  they  spilled  you  through  a 
hole  in  the  floor,  and  let  it  go  at  that ;  and — but 
what  wasn't  there,  indeed,  in  that  extraordinary 
old  feudal  citadel,  which  had  been  in  continuous 
human  possession  since  the  era  of  Hardicanute. 
There  seemed  to  be  only  one  thing  missing  in  the 
whole  castle,  and  that  was  a  bath — though  I 
dare  say  there  was  one  in  the  private  apartments 
not  shown  to  me.  It  was  a  regular  dive  into  the 
last  five  hundred  years,  and  the  fact  that  it 
wasn't  a  museum  nor  exploited  by  a  sing-song 
cicerone,  helped  to  make  it  for  me  a  memorable 
and  really  thrilling  experience.  I  conjured  up 
my  forebears  and  could  see  them  playing  as 
[  120] 


FFRENCHES  FIRST 
children,  growing  to  manhood,  passing  into  old 
age,  and  finally  dying  in  the  shadow  of  those 
same  massive  walls.  Verna  said  I  was  quite 
pale  when  we  emerged  at  last  into  the  open  air 
on  the  summit  of  the  high  square  tower;  and  no 
wonder  that  I  was,  for  in  a  kind  of  way  I  had 
been  deeply  impressed,  and  it  seemed  a  solemn 
thing  that  I,  like  her,  should  be  a  child  of  this 
castle,  with  roots  deep  cast  in  far-off  ages. 

"  Wouldn't  it  be  horrible,"  I  said,  "if  I 
found  out  I  wasn't  a  ffrench  at  all — but  had 
really  sprung  from  a  low-down,  capital  F  family 
in  the  next  county  or  somewhere !  " 

"  Oh,  but  you  are  a  real  ffrench,"  said  Verna. 

"  How  do  you  know?  "  I  asked. 

"  I  can  feel  it,"  she  said.  "  I  never  felt 
that  kind  of  sensation  before  towards  anybody 
except  my  father!  " 

I  hardly  knew  whether  to  be  pleased  or  not. 
And  besides,  it  didn't  seem  to  me  conclusive. 

Then  she  touched  a  button  ( for  the  castle  was 
[121] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

thoroughly  wired  and  there  was  even  a  minia- 
ture telephone  system)  and  servants  brought  us 
up  afternoon  tea,  and  a  couple  of  chairs  to  sit  on, 
and  a  folding  table  set  out  with  flowers,  and  the 
best  toast  and  the  best  tea  and  the  best  straw- 
berry jam  and  the  best  chocolate  cake  and  the 
best  butter  that  I  had  as  yet  tasted  in  the  whole 
island.  The  view  itself  was  good  enough  to 
eat,  for  we  were  high  above  everything  and  saw 
the  harbour  and  the  country  stretched  out  on  all 
sides  like  a  map. 

"  This  is  where  I  come  for  my  day-dreams," 
said  Verna.  "  I  usually  have  it  all  to  myself, 
for  people  hate  the  stairs  so  much  and  the  ladies 
twitter  about  the  dust  and  the  cobwebs  and  the 
shakiness  of  the  last  ladder,  and  the  silly  things 
get  dizzy  and  have  to  be  held." 

"  You  don't  seem  to  be  afraid,"  I  said. 

"  This  has  been  my  favourite  spot  all  my 
life,"  she  returned.  "  I  can  remember  Papa 
holding  me  up  when  I  wasn't  five  years  old  and 
[  122] 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 

telling  me  about  the  Lady  Grizzle  that  threw 
herself  off  the  parapet  rather  than  marry  some- 
body she  had  to  and  wouldn't !  " 

"  Tell  me  about  your  day-dreams,  Verna,"  I 
said. 

"  Just  a  giiTs  fancies,"  she  returned,  smiling. 
"  I  dare  say  men  have  them  too.  Fairy  princes, 
you  know,  and  what  he'd  say  and  what  I'd  say, 
and  how  much  I'd  love  him,  and  how  much  he'd 
love  me !  " 

"  I  can  understand  the  last  part  of  it,"  I 
observed. 

"  You  are  really  very  nice,"  she  returned, 
"  and  when  Papa  has  got  you  that  place  in  the 
City,  I  am  going  to  allow  you  to  come  up  here 
and  dream  too.  And  you'll  tell  me  about  the 
Sleeping  Beauty  and  I'll  unbosom  myself  about 
the  Beast,  and  we'll  exchange  heart-aches  and  be, 
oh,  so  happy  together." 

"  I  am  that  now,"  I  said. 

"  You're  awfully  easily  pleased,  Fyles,"  she 
[123] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

said.  "  Most  of  the  men  I  know  I  have  to  rack 
my  head  to  entertain ;  talk  exploring,  you  know, 
to  explorers,  and  horses  to  Derby  winners, 
and  what  it  feels  like  to  be  shot — to  soldiers — 
but  you  entertain  me,  and  that  is  so  much 
pleasanter." 

"  I  wish  I  dared  ask  you  some  questions,"  I 
said. 

"  Oh,  but  you  mustn't !  "  she  broke  out,  with 
a  quick  intuition  of  what  I  meant. 

"Why  mustn't?"  Tasked. 

"  Oh,  because — because "  she  returned. 

"  I  wouldn't  like  to  fib  to  you,  and  I  wouldn't 
like  to  tell  you  the  truth — and  it  would  make 
me  feel  hot  and  uncomfortable " 

"What  would?  "I  asked. 

"  You  see,  if  I  really  cared  for  him,  it  would 
be  different,"  she  said.  "  But  I  don't — and 
that's  all." 

"  Lady  Grizzle  over  again?  "  I  ventured. 

"  Not  altogether,"  she  said,  "  you  see  she  was 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 
perfectly    mad    about    somebody    else — which 
really  was  hard  lines  for  her,  poor  thing — while 
I " 

"Oh,  please  go  on!"  I  said,  as  she  hesi- 
tated. 

"  Fyles,"  she  said,  with  the  ghost  of  a  sigh, 
"  this  isn't  day-dreaming  at  all,  and  I'm  going 
to  give  you  another  cup  of  tea  and  change  the 
subject." 

44  What  would  you  prefer,  then?"  I  asked. 
44  No !  No  more  chocolate  cake,  thank  you." 

44  Let's  have  a  fairy  story  all  of  our  own,"  she 
said. 

44  Well,  you  begin,"  I  said. 

44  Once  upon  a  time,"  she  began,  "  there  was  a 
poor  young  man  in  New  York — an  American, 
though  of  course  he  couldn't  help  that — and  he 
came  over  to  England  and  discovered  the  home 
of  his  ancestors,  and  he  liked  them,  and  they 
liked  him — ever  so  much,  you  know — and  he 
found  that  the  old  place  was  destined  to  pass  to 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

strangers,  and  so  he  worked  and  worked  in 
a  dark  old  office,  and  stayed  up  at  night  work- 
ing some  more,  and  never  accepted  any  invita- 
tions or  took  a  holiday  except  at  week-ends  to 
the  family  castle — until  finally  he  amassed  an 
immense  fortune.  Then  he  got  into  a  fairy 
chariot,  together  with  a  bag  of  gold  and  the 
family  lawyer,  and  ordered  the  coachman  to 
drive  him  to  Lord  George  Willoughby's  in  Cur- 
zon  Street.  Then  they  sent  out  in  hot  haste  for 
Sir  George's  son,  an  awfully  fast  young  man  in 
the  Guards,  and  the  family  lawyer  haggled  and 
haggled,  and  Lord  George  hemmed  and  hawed, 
and  the  Guardsman's  eyes  sparkled  with  greed  at 
the  sight  of  the  bag  of  gold,  and  finally  for  two 
hundred  thousand  pounds  (Papa  says  he  often 
thinks  he  could  pull  it  off  for  a  hundred  and  ten 
thousand)  the  entail  is  broken  and  everybody 
signs  his  name  to  the  papers  and  the  poor  young 
man  buys  the  succession  of  Fyles  and  comes 
down  here,  regardless  of  expense,  in  a  splendid 


FFRE  NCHES    FIRST 

gilt  special  train,  and  is  received  with  open  arms 
by  his  kinsmen  at  the  castle." 

"  The  open  arms  appeal  to  me,"  I  said. 

"  He  was  nearly  hugged  to  death,"  said 
Verna,  "  for  they  were  so  pleased  the  old  name 
was  not  to  die  out  and  be  forgotten.  And  then 
the  poor  young  man  married  a  ravishing  beauty 
and  had  troops  of  sunny-haired  children,  and  the 
daughter  of  the  castle  (who  by  this  time  was  an 
old  maid  and  quite  plain,  though  everybody  said 
she  had  a  heart  like  hidden  treasure)  devoted 
herself  to  the  little  darlings  and  taught  them 
music-lessons  and  manners  and  how  to  spell  their 
names  with  a  little  f,  and  as  a  great  treat  would 
sometimes  bring  them  up  here  and  tell  them  how 
she  had  first  met  the  poor  young  man  in  the  *  dia- 
mond mornings  of  long  ago  ' !  " 

"  That's  a  good  fairy  story,"  I  said,  "  but  you 
are  all  out  about  the  end !  " 

4  You  said  you  liked  it,"  she  protested. 

*  Yes,  where  they  hugged  the  poor  young 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

man,"  I  returned,  "  but  after  that,  Verna,  it  went 
off  the  track  altogether." 

"  Perhaps  you'll  put  it  back  again,"  she  said. 

"  I  want  to  correct  all  that  about  the  daughter 
of  the  castle,"  I  said.  "  She  never  became  an 
old  maid  at  all,  for,  of  course,  the  poor  young 
man  loved  her  to  distraction  and  married  her 
right  off,  and  they  lived  happily  together  ever 
afterwards! " 

"  I  believe  that  is  nicer,"  she  said  thought- 
fully, as  though  considering  the  matter. 

"Truer,  too,"  I  said,  "because  really  the 
poor  young  man  adored  her  from  the  first  minute 
of  their  meeting !  " 

"  I  wonder  how  long  it  will  take  him  to  make 
his  fortune,"  she  said,  which,  under  the  circum- 
stances, struck  me  as  a  cruel  thing  to  say. 

"  Possibly  he  has  made  it  already,"  I  said. 
"  How  do  you  know  he  hasn't?  " 

"  By  his  looks  for  one  thing,"  she  said,  re- 
garding the  machine  oil  on  my  cuff  out  of  the 

[128] 


FFRENCHES    FIRST 
corner  of  her  eye.      "  Besides,  he  hasn't  any  of 
the  arrogance    of    a    parvenu,    and    is    much 

.  1> 

"Too  what?"  I  asked. 

44  Well  bred,"  she  replied  simply. 

"  No  doubt  that's  the  ffrench  in  him,"  I  said, 
which  I  think  was  rather  a  neat  return. 

She  didn't  answer,  but  looked  absently  across 
to  the  harbour  mouth. 

"  I  believe  there  is  a  steamer  coming  in,"  she 
said.  "  Yes,  a  steamer." 

"  A  yacht,  I  think,"  I  said,  for,  sure  enough, 
it  was  Babcock  true  to  the  minute,  heading  the 
Tallahassee  straight  in.  I  could  have  given  him 
a  hundred  dollars  on  the  spot  I  was  so  delighted, 
for  he  couldn't  have  timed  it  better,  nor  at  a 
moment  when  it  could  have  pleased  me  more. 
She  ran  in  under  easy  steam,  making  a  splendid 
appearance  with  her  raking  masts  and  razor 
bow,  under  which  the  water  spurted  on  either 
side  like  dividing  silver.  Except  a  beautiful 
[  129] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

woman,  I  don't  know  that  there's  a  sweeter 
sight  than  a  powerful,  sea-going  steam  yacht, 
with  the  sun  glinting  on  her  bright  brass-work, 
and  a  uniformed  crew  jumping  to  the  sound  of 
the  boatswain's  whistle. 

"  The  poor  young  man's  ship's  come  home," 
I  said. 

"  It  must  be  Lady  Gaunt's  Sapphire"  said 
Verna. 

"  With  the  American  colours  astern?  "  I  said. 

"  Why,  how  strange,"  she  said,  "  it  really  is 
American.  And  then  I  believe  it's  larger  than 
the  Sapphire!" 

11  Fifteen  hundred  and  four  tons  register,"  I 
said. 

"  How  do  you  know  that?  "  she  demanded, 
with  a  shade  of  surprise  in  her  voice. 

"  Because,  my  dear,  it's  mine!  "  I  said. 

"  Yours !  "  she  cried  out  in  astonishment. 

"  If  you  doubt  me,"  I  said,  "  I  shall  tell  you 
what  she  is  going  to  do  next.  She  is  about  to 

[130] 


FFRENCHES     FIRST 

steam  in  here  and  lower  a  boat  to  take  me 
aboard." 

44  She's  heading  for  Dartmouth,"  said  Verna 
incredulously,  and  the  words  were  hardly  out  of 
her  pretty  mouth  when  Babcock  swung  round 
and  pointed  the  Tallahassee's  nose  straight  at  us. 

For  a  moment  Verna  was  too  overcome  to 
speak. 

"  Fyles,"  she  said  at  last,  "  you  told  me  you 
worked  in  an  office  1  " 

"  So  I  do,"  I  said. 

"And  own  a  vessel  like  that !  "  she  exclaimed. 
"  A  yacht  the  size  of  a  man-of-war !  " 

"  It  was  you  that  said  I  was  a  poor  young 
man,"  I  observed.  "  I  was  so  pleased  at  being 
called  young  that  I  let  the  poor  pass." 

"  Fancy !  "  she  exclaimed,  looking  at  me  with 
eyes  like  stars.  And  then,  recovering  herself, 
she  added  in  another  tone:  "  Now  don't  you 
think  it  was  very  forward  to  rendezvous  at  a 
private  castle  ?  " 

[130 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

"  Oh,  I  thought  I  could  make  myself  solid 
before  she  arrived,"  I  said. 

"  Fyles,"  she  said,  "  I  am  beginning  to  have 
a  different  opinion  of  you.  You  are  not  as 
straightforward  as  a  ffrench  ought  to  be — and, 
though  I'm  ashamed  to  say  it  of  you — but  you 
are  positively  conceited." 

"  Unsay,  take  back,  those  angry  words,"  I 
said;  and  even  as  I  did  so  the  anchor  went 
splash  and  I  could  hear  the  telegraph  jingle  in 
the  engine-room. 

"And  so  you're  rich,"  said  Verna,  "  awfully, 
immensely,  disgustingly  rich,  and  you've  been 
masquerading  all  this  afternoon  as  a  charming 
pauper !  " 

"  I  don't  think  I  said  charming,"  I  remarked. 

"  But  I  say  it,"  said  Verna,  "  because,  really 
you  know,  you're  awfully  nice,  and  I  like  you, 
and  I'm  glad  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  that 
you  are  rich !  " 

"  Thank  you,"  I  said,  "  I'm  glad,  too." 


FFRENC  HES    FIRST 

"  Now  we  must  go  down  and  meet  your  boat," 
said  Verna.  "  See,  there  it  is,  coming  in — 
though  I  still  think  it  was  cheeky  of  you  to  tell 
them  to  land  uninvited." 

"  Oh,  let  them  wait !  "  I  said. 

"  No,  no,  we  must  go  and  meet  them,"  said 
Verna,  "  and  I'm  going  to  ask  that  glorious  old 
cox  with  the  yellow  beard  whether  it's  all  true 
or  not  1  " 

"  You  can't  believe  it  yet?  "  I  said. 

"  You've  only  yourself  to  thank  for  it,"  she 
said.  "  I  got  used  to  you  as  one  thing — and 
here  you  are,  under  my  eyes,  turning  out  an- 
other." 

I  could  not  resist  saying  "Fancy!"  though 
she  did  not  seem  to  perceive  any  humour  in  my 
exclamation  of  it,  and  took  it  as  a  matter  of 
course.  Besides,  she  had  risen  now,  and  bade 
me  follow  her  down  the  stairs. 

It  was  really  fine  to  see  the  men  salute  me  as 
we  walked  down  to  the  boat,  and  the  darkies' 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

teeth  shining  at  the  sight  of  me  (for  I'm  a  be- 
liever in  the  coloured  sailor)  and  old  Neilsen 
grinning  respectfully  in  the  stern-sheets. 

"  Neilsen,"  I  said,  "  tell  this  young  lady  my 


name !  " 


"  Mr.  ffrench,  sir,"  he  answered,  consider- 
ably astonished  at  the  question. 

"Little  for  big  F,  Neilsen?" 

"  Little  f,  sir,"  said  Neilsen. 

"  There,  doubter!  "  I  said  to  Verna. 

She  had  her  hand  on  my  arm  and  was  smiling 
down  at  the  men  from  the  little  stone  pier  on 
which  we  stood. 

"  Fyles,"  she  said,  "  you  must  land  and  dine 
with  us  to-night,  not  only  because  I  want  you  to, 
but  because  you  ought  to  meet  my  father." 

"About  when?"  I  asked. 

"  Seven-thirty,"  she  answered;  and  then,  in  a 
lower  voice,  so  that  the  men  below  might  not 
hear:  "  Our  fairy  tale  is  coming  true,  isn't  it, 
Fyles?" 

[134] 


FFRENCHES     FIRST 

"  Right  to  the  end,"  I  said. 

"  There  were  two  ends/'  she  said.  "  Mine 
and  yours." 

"Oh,  mine,"  I  said;  "that  is,  if  you'll  live 
up  to  your  part  of  it  1  " 

"  What  do  you  want  me  to  do?  "  she  asked. 

"  Throw  over  the  Beast  and  be  my  Princess," 
I  said,  trying  to  talk  lightly,  though  my  voice 
betrayed  me. 

"  Perhaps  I  will,"  she  answered. 

"  Perhaps!"  I  repeated.  "That  isn't  any 
answer  at  all." 

"  Yes,  then !  "  she  said  quickly,  and,  disengag- 
ing her  hand  from  my  arm,  ran  back  a  few 
steps. 

"  I  hear  Papa's  wheels,"  she  cried  over  her 
shoulder,  u  and,  don't  forget,  Fyles,  dinner  at 
seven-thirty  1  " 


[135] 


THE    GOLDEN    CASTAWAYS 


THE    GOLDEN     CASTAWAYS 

A"  ~^  I  did  was  to  pull  him  out  by  the  seat 
of  the  trousers.  The  fat  old  thing  had 
gone  out  in  the  dark  to  the  end  of  the 
yacht's  boat-boom,  and  was  trying  to  worry  in 
the  dinghy  with  his  toe,  when  plump  he  dropped 
into  a  six-knot  ebb  tide.  Of  course,  if  I  hadn't 
happened  along  in  a  launch,  he  might  have 
drowned,  but,  as  for  anything  heroic  on  my  part 
— why,  the  very  notion  is  preposterous.  The 
whole  affair  only  lasted  half  a  minute,  and  in 
five  he  was  aboard  his  yacht  and  drinking  hot 
Scotch  in  a  plush  dressing-gown.  It  was  natural 
that  his  wife  and  daughter  should  be  frightened, 
and  natural,  too,  I  suppose,  that  when  they 
had  finished  crying  over  him  they  should  cry 
over  me.  He  had  taken  a  chance  with  the  East 
River,  and  it  had  been  the  turn  of  a  hair  whether 
[  139] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

he  floated  down  the  current  a  dead  grocer  full 
of  brine,  or  stood  in  that  cabin,  a  live  one  full 
of  grog.  Oh,  no!  I  am  not  saying  a  word 
against  them.  But  as  for  Grossensteck  himself, 
he  ought  really  to  have  known  better,  and  it 
makes  me  flush  even  now  to  recall  his  monstrous 
perversion  of  the  truth.  He  called  me  a  hero 
to  my  face.  He  invented  details  to  which  my 
dry  clothes  gave  the  lie  direct.  He  threw  fits 
of  gratitude.  His  family  were  theatrically  com- 
manded to  regard  me  well,  so  that  my  counte- 
nance might  be  forever  imprinted  on  their 
hearts;  and  they,  poor  devils,  in  a  seventh 
heaven  to  have  him  back  safe  and  sound  in  their 
midst,  regarded  and  regarded,  and  imprinted 
and  imprinted,  till  I  felt  like  a  perfect  ass  mas- 
querading as  a  Hobson. 

It  was  all  I  could  do  to  tear  myself  away. 

Grossensteck  clung  to  me.     Mrs.  Grossensteck 

clung  to  me.    Teresa — that  was  the  daughter — 

Teresa,  too,  clung  to  me.     I  had  to  give  my 

[  140] 


THE     GOLDEN     CASTAWAYS 

address.  I  had  to  take  theirs.  Medals  were 
spoken  of;  gold  watches  with  inscriptions;  a  com- 
mon purse,  on  which  I  was  requested  to  confer 
the  favour  of  drawing  for  the  term  of  my  natural 
life.  I  departed  in  a  blaze  of  glory,  and  though 
I  could  not  but  see  the  ridiculous  side  of  the 
affair  (I  mean  as  far  as  I  was  concerned),  I 
was  moved  by  so  affecting  a  family  scene,  and 
glad,  indeed,  to  think  that  the  old  fellow  had 
been  spared  to  his  wife  and  daughter.  I  had 
even  a  pang  of  envy,  for  I  could  not  but  contrast 
myself  with  Grossensteck,  and  wondered  if  there 
were  two  human  beings  in  the  world  who  would 
have  cared  a  snap  whether  I  lived  or  died.  Of 
course,  that  was  just  a  passing  mood,  for,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  I  am  a  man  with  many  friends, 
and  I  knew  some  would  feel  rather  miserable 
were  I  to  make  a  hole  in  saltwater.  But,  you  see, 
I  had  just  had  a  story  refused  by  Schoonmaker's 
Magazine,  a  good  story,  too,  and  that  always 
gives  me  a  sinking  feeling — to  think  that  after 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

all  these  years  I  am  still  on  the  borderland  of 
failure,  and  can  never  be  sure  of  acceptance, 
even  by  the  second-class  periodicals  for  which  I 
write.  However,  in  a  day  or  two,  I  managed 
to  unload  "  The  Case  against  Phillpots "  on 
somebody  else,  and  off  I  started  for  the  New 
Jersey  coast  with  a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  in 
my  pocket,  and  no  end  of  plans  for  a  long  au- 
tumn holiday. 

I  never  gave  another  thought  to  Grossensteck 
until  one  morning,  as  I  was  sitting  on  the  ver- 
anda of  my  boarding-house,  the  postman  ap- 
peared and  requested  me  to  sign  for  a  registered 
package.  I  opened  it  with  some  trepidation,  for 
I  had  caught  that  fateful  name  written  crosswise 
in  the  corner  and  began  at  once  to  apprehend  the 
worst.  I  think  I  have  as  much  assurance  as  any 
man,  but  it  took  all  I  had  and  more,  too,  when  I 
unwrapped  a  gold  medal  the  thickness  and  shape 
of  an  enormous  checker,  and  deciphered  the  fol- 
lowing inscription : 


THE    GOLDEN     CASTAWAYS 

Presented 

to 

Hugo  Dundonald  Esquire 

for  having 
With  signal   heroism,  gallantry  and   presence  of  mind 

rescued 

On  the   night  of  June  third,  1900 
the  life 

of 
Hermann  Grossensteck 

from 
The  dark  and  treacherous  waters  of  the  East  River. 

The  thing  was  as  thick  as  two  silver  dollars, 
laid  the  one  on  the  other,  and  gold — solid,  ring- 
ing, massy  gold — all  the  way  through;  and  it 
was  associated  with  a  blue  satin  ribbon,  besides, 
which  was  to  serve  for  sporting  it  on  my  manly 
bosom.  I  set  it  on  the  rail  and  laughed — 
laughed  till  the  tears  ran  down  my  cheeks — 
while  the  other  boarders  crowded  about  me; 

[143] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

handed  it  from  hand  to  hand;  grew  excited  to 
think  that  they  had  a  hero  in  their  midst;  and 
put  -down  my  explanation  to  the  proverbial  mod- 
esty of  the  brave.  Blended  with  my  amusement 
were  some  qualms  at  the  intrinsic  value  of  the 
medal,  for  it  could  scarcely  have  cost  less  than 
three  or  four  hundred  dollars,  and  it  worried  me 
to  think  that  Grossensteck  must  have  drawn  so 
lavishly  on  his  savings.  It  had  not  occurred  to 
me,  either  before  or  then,  that  he  was  rich; 
somehow,  in  the  bare  cabin  of  the  schooner,  I 
had  received  no  such  impression  of  his  means.  I 
had  not  even  realised  that  the  vessel  was  his  own, 
taking  it  for  granted  that  it  had  been  hired,  all 
standing,  for  a  week  or  two  with  the  put-by 
economies  of  a  year.  His  home  address  ought 
to  have  set  me  right,  but  I  had  not  taken  the 
trouble  to  read  it,  slipping  it  into  my  pocket- 
book  more  to  oblige  him  than  with  any  idea  of 
following  up  the  acquaintance.  It  was  one  of 
the  boarders  that  enlightened  me. 

[144] 


THE     GOLDEN     CASTAWAYS 

"Grossensteck!  "  he  exclaimed;  "why,  that's 
the  great  cheap  grocer  of  New  York,  the  Park 
&  Tilford  of  the  lower  orders!  There  are 
greenbacks  in  his  rotten  tea,  you  know,  and 
places  to  leave  your  baby  while  you  buy  his 
sanded  sugar,  and  if  you  save  eighty  tags  of  his 
syrup  you  get  a  silver  spoon  you  wouldn't  be 
found  dead  with !  Oh,  everybody  knows  Gros- 
sensteck! " 

"  Well,  I  pulled  the  great  cheap  grocer  out  of 
the  East  River,"  I  said.  "  There  was  certainly 
a  greenback  in  that  tea,"  and  I  took  another 
look  at  my  medal,  and  began  to  laugh  all  over 
again. 

"  There's  no  reason  why  you  should  ever 
have  another  grocery  bill,"  said  the  boarder. 
14  That  is,  if  flavour  cuts  no  figure  with  you,  and 
you'd  rather  eat  condemned  army  stores  than 
not!" 

I  sat  down  and  wrote  a  letter  of  thanks.  It 
was  rather  a  nice  letter,  for  I  could  not  but  feel 

[145] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

pleased  at  the  old  fellow's  gratitude,  even  if  it 
were  a  trifle  overdone,  and,  when  all's  said,  it 
was  undoubtedly  a  fault  on  the  right  side.  I 
disclaimed  the  heroism,  and  bantered  him  good- 
naturedly  about  the  medal,  which,  of  course,  I 
said  I  would  value  tremendously  and  wear  on 
appropriate  occasions.  I  wondered  at  the  time 
what  occasion  could  be  appropriate  to  decorate 
one's  self  with  a  gold  saucer  covered  with  lies — 
but,  naturally,  I  didn't  go  into  that  to  him. 
When  you  accept  a  solid  chunk  of  gold  you 
might  as  well  be  handsome  about  it,  and  I  piled 
it  on  about  his  being  long  spared  to  his  family 
and  to  a  world  that  wouldn't  know  how  to  get 
along  without  him.  Yes,  it  was  a  stunning  let- 
ter, and  I've  often  had  the  pleasure  of  reading 
it  since  in  a  splendid  frame  below  my  photo- 
graph. 

I  had  been  a  month  or  more  in  New  York,  and 
December  was  already  well  advanced  before  I 
looked  up  my  Grossenstecks,  which  I  did  one  late 


THE    GOLDEN    CASTAWAYS 

afternoon  as  I  happened  to  be  passing  in  their 
direction.  It  was  a  house  of  forbidding  splen- 
dour, on  the  Fifth  Avenue  side  of  Central  Park, 
and,  as  I  trod  its  marble  halls,  I  could  not 
but  repeat  to  myself:  "  Behold,  the  grocer's 
dream !  "  But  I  could  make  no  criticism  of 
my  reception  by  Mrs.  Grossensteck  and  Teresa, 
whom  I  found  at  home  and  -delighted  to  see  me. 
Mrs.  Grossensteck  was  a  stout,  jolly,  motherly 
woman,  common,  of  course, — but,  if  you  can 
understand  what  I  mean, — common  in  a  nice 
way,  and  honest  and  unpretentious  and  likable. 
Teresa,  whom  I  had  scarcely  noticed  on  the 
night  of  the  accident,  was  a  charmingly  pretty 
girl  of  eighteen,  very  chic  and  gay,  with  pleasant 
manners  and  a  contagious  laugh.  She  had  ar- 
rived at  obviously  the  turn  of  the  Grossensteck 
fortunes,  and  might,  in  refinement  and  every- 
thing else,  have  belonged  to  another  clay.  How 
often  one  sees  that  in  America,  the  land  above 
others  of  social  contrast,  where,  in  the  same 

[147] 


L  O  V  E    THE     FIDDLER 

family,  there  are  often  three  separate  degrees 
of  caste. 

Well,  to  get  along  with  my  visit.  I  liked 
them  and  they  liked  me,  and  I  returned  later  the 
same  evening  to  dine  and  meet  papa.  I  found 
him  as  impassionedly  grateful  as  before,  and 
with  a  tale  that  trespassed  even  further  on  the 
incredible,  and  after  dinner  we  all  sat  around  a 
log  fire  and  talked  ourselves  into  a  sort  of  inti- 
macy. They  were  wonderfully  good  people, 
and  though  we  hadn't  a  word  in  common,  nor  an 
idea,  we  somehow  managed  to  hit  it  off,  as  one 
often  can  with  those  who  are  unaffectedly 
frank  and  simple.  I  had  to  cry  over  the  death 
of  little  Hermann  in  the  steerage  (when  they 
had  first  come  to  America  twenty  years  ago), 
and  how  Grossensteck  had  sneaked  gingersnaps 
from  the  slop-baskets  of  the  saloon. 

"  The  little  teffil  never  knew  where  they  come 
from,"  said  Grossensteck,  "  and  so  what  mat- 
ters it?" 

[148] 


THE    GOLDEN    CASTAWAYS 

"  That's  Papa's  name  in  the  slums,"  said 
Teresa.  "  Uncle  Gingersnaps,  because  at  all 
his  stores  they  give  away  so  many  for  noth- 
ing." 

"  By  Jove!"  I  said,  "  there  are  some  nick- 
names that  are  patents  of  nobility." 

What  impressed  me  as  much  as  anything  with 
these  people  was  their  loneliness.  Parvenus  are 
not  always  pushing  and  self-seeking,  nor  do  they 
invariably  throw  down  the  ladder  by  which 
they  have  climbed.  The  Grossenstecks  would 
have  been  so  well  content  to  keep  their  old 
friends,  but  poverty  hides  its  head  from  the 
glare  of  wealth  and  takes  fright  at  altered  con- 
ditions. 

"  They  come — yes,"  said  Mrs.  Grossensteck, 
"  but  they  are  scared  of  the  fine  house,  of  the 
high-toned  help,  of  everything  being  gold,  you 
know,  and  fashionable.  And  when  Papa  sends 
their  son  to  college,  or  gives  the  girl  a  little 
stocking  against  her  marriage  day,  they  slink 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

away  ashamed.  Oh,  Mr.  Dundonald,  but  it's 
hard  to  thank  and  be  thanked,  especially  when 
the  favours  are  all  of  one  side !  " 

"  The  rich  have  efferyting,"  said  Grossen- 
steck,  "  but  friends — Neinl  " 

New  ones  had  apparently  never  come  to  take 
the  places  of  the  old;  and  the  old  had  melted 
away.  Theirs  was  a  life  of  solitary  grandeur, 
varied  with  dinner  parties  to  their  managers  and 
salesmen.  Socially  speaking,  their  house  was  a 
desert  island,  and  they  themselves  three  casta- 
ways on  a  golden  rock,  scanning  the  empty  seas 
for  a  sail.  To  carry  on  a  metaphor,  I  might 
say  I  was  the  sail  and  welcomed  accordingly.  I 
was  everything  that  they  were  not ;  I  was  poor ;  I 
mixed  with  people  whose  names  filled  them  with 
awe ;  my  own  was  often  given  at  first  nights  and 
things  of  that  sort.  In  New  York,  the  least 
snobbish  of  great  cities,  a  man  need  have  but  a 
dress  suit  and  car-fare — if  he  be  the  right  kind 
of  a  man,  of  course — to  go  anywhere  and  hold 


THE    GOLDEN    CASTAWAYS 

up  his  head  with  the  best.  In  a  place  so  uni- 
versally rich,  there  is  even  a  certain  piquancy  in 
being  a  pauper.  The  Grossenstecks  were  over- 
come to  think  I  shined  my  own  shoes,  and  had 
to  calculate  my  shirts,  and  the  fact  that  I  was 
no  longer  young  (that's  the  modern  formula  for 
forty),  and  next-door  to  a  failure  in  the  art  I 
had  followed  for  so  many  years,  served  to  whet 
their  pity  and  their  regard.  My  little  trashy 
love-stories  seemed  to  them  the  fruits  of  genius, 
and  they  were  convinced,  the  poor  simpletons, 
that  the  big  magazines  were  banded  in  a  con- 
spiracy to  block  my  way  to  fame. 

"  My  dear  poy,"  said  Grossensteck,  "  you 
know  as  much  of  peeziness  as  a  child  unporne, 
and  I  tell  you  it's  the  same  efferywhere — in 
groceries,  in  hardware,  in  the  alkali  trade,  in 
effery  branch  of  industry,  the  pig  operators  stand 
shoulder  to  shoulder  to  spiflicate  the  little  fellers 
like  you.  You  must  combine  with  the  other  pro- 
ducers ;  you  must  line  up  and  break  through  the 
[15*1 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

ring;  you  must  scare  them  out  of  their  poots, 
and,  by  Gott,  I'll  help  you  do  it!  " 

In  their  naive  interest  in  my  fortunes,  the 
Grossenstecks  rejoiced  at  an  acceptance,  and 
were  correspondingly  depressed  at  my  failures. 
A  fifteen-dollar  poem  would  make  them  happy 
for  a  week;  and  when  some  of  my  editors  were 
slow  to  pay — on  the  literary  frontiers  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  this  sort  of  procrastination — Uncle 
Gingersnaps  was  always  hot  to  put  the  matter 
into  the  hands  of  his  collectors,  and  commence 
legal  proceedings  in  default. 

Little  by  little  I  drifted  into  a  curious  inti- 
macy with  the  Grossenstecks.  Their  house  by 
degrees  became  my  refuge.  I  was  given  my  own 
suite  of  rooms,  my  own  latch-key;  I  came  and 
went  unremarked;  and  what  I  valued  most  of 
all  was  that  my  privacy  was  respected,  and  no 
one  thought  to  intrude  upon  me  when  I  closed 
my  door.  In  time  I  managed  to  alter  the  whole 
house  to  my  liking,  and  spent  their  money  like 


THE    GOLDEN    CASTAWAYS 

water  in  the  process.  Gorgeousness  gave  way 
to  taste;  I  won't  be  so  fatuous  as  to  say  my 
taste ;  but  mine  was  in  conjunction  with  the  best 
decorators  in  New  York.  One  was  no  longer 
blinded  by  magnificence,  but  found  rest  and 
peace  and  beauty.  Teresa  and  I  bought  the 
pictures.  She  was  a  wonderfully  clever  girl, 
full  of  latent  appreciation  and  understanding 
which  until  then  had  lain  dormant  in  her  breast. 
I  quickened  those  unsuspected  fires,  and,  though 
I  do  not  vaunt  my  own  judgment  as  anything 
extraordinary,  it  represented  at  least  the  con- 
ventional standard  and  was  founded  on  years  of 
observation  and  training.  We  let  the  old  mas- 
ters go  as  something  too  smudgy  and  recondite 
for  any  but  experts,  learning  our  lesson  over 
one  Correggio  which  nearly  carried  us  into  the 
courts,  and  bought  modern  American  instead, 
amongst  them  some  fine  examples  of  our 
best  men.  We  had  a  glorious  time  doing  it, 
too,  and  showered  the  studios  with  golden 

[153] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

rain — in  some  where  it  was  evidently  enough 
needed. 

There  was  something  childlike  in  the  Gros- 
senstecks'  confidence  in  me;  I  mean  the  old  peo- 
ple; for  it  was  otherwise  with  Teresa,  with 
whom  I  often  quarrelled  over  my  artistic  re- 
forms, and  who  took  any  conflict  in  taste  to 
heart.  There  were  whole  days  when  she  would 
not  speak  to  me  at  all,  while  I,  on  my  side,  was 
equally  obstinate,  and  all  this,  if  you  please, 
about  some  miserable  tapestry  or  a  Louise  Seize 
chair  or  the  right  light  for  a  picture  of  Will 
Low's.  But  she  was  such  a  sweet  girl  and  so 
pretty  that  one  could  not  be  angry  with  her  long, 
and  what  with  our  fights  and  our  makings  up  I 
dare  say  we  made  it  more  interesting  to  each 
other  than  if  we  had  always  agreed.  It  was 
only  once  that  our  friendship  was  put  in  real 
jeopardy,  and  that  was  when  her  parents  decided 
they  could  not  die  happy  unless  we  made  a 
match  of  it.  This  was  embarrassing  for  both 
[154] 


THE     GOLDEN     CASTAWAYS 

of  us,  and  for  a  while  she  treated  me  very  coldly. 
But  we  had  it  out  together  one  evening  in  the 
library  and  decided  to  let  the  matter  make  no 
difference  to  us,  going  on  as  before  the  best  of 
friends.  I  was  the  last  person  to  expect  a  girl 
of  eighteen  to  care  for  a  man  of  forty,  partic- 
ularly one  like  myself,  ugly  and  grey-haired, 
who  had  long  before  outworn  the  love  of 
women.  In  fact  I  had  to  laugh,  one  of  those 
sad  laughs  that  come  to  us  with  the  years,  at  the 
thought  of  anything  so  absurd;  and  I  soon  got 
her  to  give  up  her  tragic  pose  and  see  the  humour 
of  it  all  as  I  did.  So  we  treated  it  as  a  joke, 
rallied  the  old  folks  on  their  sentimental  folly, 
and  let  it  pass. 

It  set  me  thinking,  however,  a  great  deal 
about  the  girl  and  her  future,  and  I  managed  to 
make  interest  with  several  of  my  friends  and  get 
her  invited  to  some  good  houses.  Of  course  it 
was  impossible  to  carry  the  old  people  into  this 
galere.  They  were  frankly  impossible,  but 


LOVE  THE  FIDDLER 
fortunately  so  meek  and  humble  that  it  never 
occurred  to  them  to  assert  themselves  or  resent 
their  daughter  going  to  places  where  they  would 
have  been  refused.  Uncle  Gingersnaps  would 
have  paid  money  to  stay  at  home,  and  Mrs. 
Grossensteck  had  too  much  homely  pride  to  put 
herself  in  a  false  position.  They  saw  indeed 
only  another  reason  to  be  grateful  to  me,  and 
another  example  of  my  surpassing  kindness. 
Pretty,  by  no  means  a  fool,  and  gowned  by  the 
best  coutouri&res  of  Paris,  Teresa  made  quite  a 
hit,  and  blossomed  as  girls  do  in  the  social  sun- 
shine. The  following  year,  in  the  whirl  of  a 
gay  New  York  winter,  one  would  scarcely  have 
recognised  her  as  the  same  person.  She  had 
"  made  good,"  as  boys  say,  and  had  used  my 
stepping-stones  to  carry  her  far  beyond  my  ken. 
In  her  widening  interests,  broader  range,  and  in- 
creased worldly  knowledge  we  became  naturally 
better  friends  than  ever  and  met  on  the  common 
ground  of  those  who  led  similar  lives.  What 


THE    GOLDEN    CASTAWAYS 

man  would  not  value  the  intimacy  of  a  young, 
beautiful,  and  clever  woman?  in  some  ways  it  is 
better  than  love  itself,  for  love  is  a  duel,  with 
wounds  given  and  taken,  and  its  pleasures  dearly 
paid  for.  Between  Teresa  and  myself  there 
was  no  such  disturbing  bond,  and  we  were 
at  liberty  to  be  altogether  frank  in  our  inter- 
course. 

One  evening  when  I  happened  to  be  dining  at 
the  house,  the  absence  of  her  father  and  the  in- 
disposition of  her  mother  left  us  tete-a-t£te  in  the 
smoking-room,  whither  she  came  to  keep  me 
company  with  my  cigar.  I  saw  that  she  was 
restless  and  with  something  on  her  mind  to  tell 
me,  but  I  was  too  old  a  stager  to  force  a  con- 
fidence, least  of  all  a  woman's,  and  so  I  waited, 
said  nothing,  and  blew  smoke  rings. 

"  Hugo,"  she  said,  "  there  is  something  I  wish 
to  speak  to  you  about." 

"  I've  known  that  for  the  last  hour,  Teresa," 
I  said. 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

14  This  is  something  serious,"  she  said,  look- 
ing at  me  strangely. 

"  Blaze  away,"  I  said. 

"  Hugo,"  she  broke  out,  "  you  have  been 
borrowing  money  from  my  father." 

I  nodded. 

"  A  great  deal  of  money,"  she  went  on. 

"  For  him — no,"  I  said.  "  For  me — well, 
yes." 

"  Eight  or  nine  hundred  dollars,"  she  said. 

;<  Those  are  about  the  figures,"  I  returned. 
"  Call  it  nine  hundred." 

"  Oh,  how  could  you !  How  could  you !  " 
she  exclaimed. 

I  remained  silent.  In  fact  I  did  not  know 
what  to  say. 

"  Don't  you  see  the  position  you're  putting 
yourself  in?  "  she  said. 

"Position?"  I  repeated.  "What  posi- 
tion?" 

"  It's  horrible,  it's  ignoble,"  she  broke  out. 
[158] 


THE     GOLDEN     CASTAWAYS 

"  I  have  always  admired  you  for  the  way  you 
kept  yourself  clear  of  such  an  ambiguous  rela- 
tion— youVe  known  to  the  fraction  of  an  inch 
what  to  take,  what  to  refuse — to  preserve  your 
self-respect — my  respect — unimpaired.  And 
here  I  see  you  slipping  into  degradation.  Oh, 
Hugo !  I  can't  bear  it." 

"Is  it  such  a  crime  to  borrow  a  little  money?" 
I  asked. 

"  Not  if  you  pay  it  back,"  she  returned. 
"  Not  if  you  mean  to  pay  it  back.  But  you 
know  you  can't.  You  know  you  won't!  " 

"  You  think  it's  the  thin  edge  of  the  wedge?  " 
I  said.  "  The  beginning  of  the  end  and  all 
that  kind  of  thing?" 

"  You  will  go  on,"  she  cried.  "  You  will 
become  a  dependent  in  this  house,  a  hanger-on, 
a  sponger.  I  will  hate  you.  You  will  hate 
yourself.  It  went  through  me  like  a  knife  when 
I  found  it  out." 

I  smoked  my  cigar  in  silence.    I  suppose  she 

[159] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

was  quite  right — horribly  right,  though  I  didn't 
like  her  any  better  for  being  so  plain-spoken 
about  it.  I  felt  myself  turning  red  under  her 
gaze. 

"  What  do  you  want  me  to  do?  "  I  said  at 
length. 

"  Pay  it  back,"  she  said. 

"  I  wish  to  God  I  could/'  I  said.  "  But  you 
know  how  I  live,  Teresa,  hanging  on  by  the 
skin  of  my  teeth — hardly  able  to  keep  my  head 
above  water,  let  alone  having  a  dollar  to  spare." 

"  Then  you  can't  pay,"  she  said. 

"  I  don't  think  I  can,"  I  returned. 

"  Then  you  ought  to  leave  this  house,"  she 
said. 

"  You  have  certainly  made  it  impossible  for 
me  to  stay,  Teresa,"  I  said. 

"  I  want  to  make  it  impossible,"  she  cried. 
"  You — you  don't  understand — you  think  I'm 
cruel — it's  because  I  like  you,  Hugo — it's  be- 
cause you're  the  one  man  I  admire  above  any- 
[160] 


THE    GOLDEN    CASTAWAYS 

body  in  the  world.  I'd  rather  see  you  starving 
than  dishonoured." 

"  Thank  you  for  your  kind  interest,"  I  said 
ironically.  "  Under  the  circumstances  I  am 
almost  tempted  to  wish  you  admired  me  less." 

"  Am  I  not  right?  "  she  demanded. 

"  Perfectly  right,"  I  returned.  "Oh,  yes! 
Perfectly  right." 

"  And  you'll  go,"  she  said. 

"  Yes,  I'll  go,"  I  said. 

"  And  earn  the  money  and  pay  father?  "  she 
went  on. 

"  And  earn  the  money  and  pay  father,"  I 
repeated. 

"  And  then  come  back?  "  she  added. 

"  Never,  never,  never !  "  I  cried  out. 

I  could  see  her  pale  under  the  lights. 

"  Oh,  Hugo !  don't  be  so  ungenerous,"  she 

said.  u  Don't  be  so — so "  She  hesitated, 

apparently  unable  to  continue. 

"  Ungenerous  or  not,"  I  said,  "  damn  the 
[161] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

words,  Teresa,  this  isn't  a  time  to  weigh  words. 
It  isn't  in  flesh  and  blood  to  come  back.  I  can't 
come  back.  Put  yourself  in  my  place." 

"  Some  day  you'll  thank  me,"  she  said. 

"  Very  possibly,"  I  returned.  "  Nobody 
knows  what  may  not  happen.  It's  conceivable, 
of  course,  I  might  go  down  on  my  bended  knees, 
but  really,  from  the  way  I  feel  at  this  moment, 
I  do  not  think  it's  likely." 

"  You  want  to  punish  me  for  liking  you,"  she 
said. 

"  Teresa,"  I  said,  "  I  have  told  you  already 
that  you  are  right.  You  insist  on  saving  me 
from  a  humiliating  position.  I  respect  your 
courage  and  your  straightforwardness.  You 
remind  me  of  an  ancient  Spartan  having  it  out 
with  a  silly  ass  of  a  stranger  who  took  advan- 
tage of  her  parents'  good-nature.  I  am  as  little 
vain,  I  think,  as  any  man,  and  as  free  from  petti- 
ness and  idiotic  pride — but  you  mustn't  ask  the 
impossible.  You  mustn't  expect  the  whipped 


THE     GOLDEN     CASTAWAYS 

dog  to  come  back.     When  I  go  it  will  be  for 


ever." 


"  Then  go,"  she  said,  and  looked  me  straight 
in  the  eyes. 

"  I  have  only  one  thing  to  ask,"  I  said. 
"  Smooth  it  over  to  your  father  and  mother. 
I  am  very  fond  of  your  father  and  mother, 
Teresa;  I  don't  want  them  to  think  I've  acted 
badly,  or  that  I  have  ceased  to  care  for  them. 
Tell  them  the  necessary  lies,  you  know." 

"  I  will  tell  them,"  she  said. 

"  Then  good-bye,"  I  said,  rising.  "  I  sup- 
pose I  am  acting  like  a  baby  to  feel  so  sore. 
But  I  am  hurt." 

"  Good-bye,  Hugo,"  she  said. 

I  went  to  the  door  and  down  the  stairs.  She 
followed  and  stood  looking  after  me  the  length 
of  the  hall  as  I  slowly  put  on  my  hat  and  coat. 
That  was  the  last  I  saw  of  her,  in  the  shadow  of 
a  palm,  her  girlish  figure  outlined  against  the 
black  behind.  I  walked  into  the  street  with  a 
[163] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

heart  like  lead,  and  for  the  first  time  in  my  life 
I  began  to  feel  I  was  growing  old. 

I  have  been  from  my  youth  up  an  easy-going 
man,  a  drifter,  a  dawdler,  always  willing  to  put 
off  work  for  play.  But  for  once  I  pulled  my- 
self together,  looked  things  in  the  face,  and  put 
my  back  to  the  wheel.  I  was  determined  to 
repay  that  nine  hundred  dollars,  if  I  had  to  cut 
every  dinner-party  for  the  rest  of  the  season.  I 
was  determined  to  repay  it,  if  I  had  to  work  as  I 
had  never  worked  before.  My  first  move  was 
to  change  my  address.  I  didn't  want  Uncle 
Gingersnaps  ferreting  me  out,  and  Mrs.  Gros- 
sensteck  weeping  on  my  shoulder.  My  next  was 
to  cancel  my  whole  engagement  book.  My 
third,  to  turn  over  my  wares  and  to  rack  my  head 
for  new  ideas. 

I  had  had  a  long-standing  order  from  Gran- 
ger's Weekly  for  a  novelette.  I  had  always 
hated  novelettes,  as  one  had  to  wait  so  long  for 


THE  GOLDEN  CASTAWAYS 
one's  money  and  then  get  so  little;  but  in  the 
humour  I  then  found  myself  I  plunged  into  the 
fray,  if  not  with  enthusiasm,  at  least  with  a 
dogged  perseverance  that  was  almost  as  good. 
Granger's  Weekly  liked  triviality  and  di- 
alogue, a  lot  of  fuss  about  nothing  and  a  happy 
ending.  I  gave  it  to  them  in  a  heaping  measure. 
Dixie's  Monthly,  from  which  I  had  a  short- 
story  order,  set  dialect  above  rubies.  I  didn't 
know  any  dialect,  but  I  borrowed  a  year's  file 
and  learned  it  like  a  lesson.  They  wrote  and 
asked  me  for  another  on  the  strength  of  "  The 
Courting  of  Amandar  Jane."  The  Perme- 
ator  was  keen  on  Kipling  and  water,  and  I 
gave  it  to  them — especially  the  water.  Like  all 
Southern  families  the  Dundonalds  had  once  had 
their  day.  I  had  travelled  everywhere  when  I 
was  a  boy,  and  so  I  accordingly  refreshed  my 
dim  memories  with  some  modern  travellers  and 
wrote  a  short  series  for  The  Little  Gentleman: 
"  The  Boy  in  the  Carpathians,"  "  The  Boy  in 
[165] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

Old  Louisiana,"  "  A  Boy  in  the  Tyrol,"  "  A  Boy 
in  London,"  "  A  Boy  in  Paris,"  "  A  Boy  at  the 
Louvre,"  "  A  Boy  in  Corsica,"  "  A  Boy  in  the 
Reconstruction."  I  reeled  off  about  twenty  of 
them  and  sold  them  to  advantage. 

It  was  a  terribly  dreary  task,  and  I  had 
moments  of  revolt  when  I  stamped  up  and  down 
my  little  flat  and  felt  like  throwing  my  resolu- 
tion to  the  winds.  But  I  stuck  tight  to  the  ink- 
bottle  and  fought  the  thing  through.  My 
novelette,  strange  to  say,  was  good.  Written 
against  time  and  against  inclination,  it  has  always 
been  regarded  since  as  the  best  thing  I  ever  did, 
and  when  published  in  book  form  outran  three 
editions. 

I  made  a  thundering  lot  of  money — for 
me,  I  mean,  and  in  comparison  to  my  usual 
income — seldom  under  five  hundred  dollars  a 
month  and  often  more.  In  eleven  weeks  I  had 
repaid  Grossensteck  and  had  a  credit  in  the 
bank.  Nine  hundred  dollars  has  always  re- 
[166] 


THE     GOLDEN     CASTAWAYS 

mained  to  me  as  a  unit  of  value,  a  sum  of 
agonising  significance  not  lightly  to  be  spoken 
of,  the  fruits  of  hellish  industry  and  self-denial. 
All  this  while  I  had  had  never  a  word  from  the 
Grossenstecks.  At  least  they  wrote  to  me  often 
— telephoned — telegraphed — and  my  box  at  the 
club  was  choked  with  their  letters.  But  I  did 
not  open  a  single  one  of  them,  though  I  found  a 
pleasure  in  turning  them  over  and  over,  and 
wondering  as  to  what  was  within  them.  There 
were  several  in  Teresa's  fine  hand,  and  these 
interested  me  most  of  all  and  tantalised  me  un- 
speakably. There  was  one  of  hers,  cunningly 
addressed  to  me  in  a  stranger's  writing  that  I 
opened  inadvertently ;  but  I  at  once  perceived  the 
trick  and  had  the  strength  of  mind  to  throw  it  in 
the  fire  unread. 

Perhaps  you  will  wonder  at  my  childishness. 

Sometimes  I  wondered  at  it  myself.      But  the 

wound  still  smarted,   and  something  stronger 

than  I  seemed  to  withhold  me  from  again  break- 

[167] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

ing  the  ice.  Besides,  those  long  lonely  days, 
and  those  nights,  almost  as  long  in  the  retro- 
spect, when  I  lay  sleepless  on  my  bed,  had 
shown  me  I  had  been  drifting  into  another  peril 
no  less  dangerous  than  dependence.  I  had  been 
thinking  too  much  of  the  girl  for  my  own  good, 
and  our  separation  had  brought  me  to  a  sudden 
realisation  of  how  deeply  I  was  beginning  to 
care  for  her.  I  hated  her,  too,  the  pitiless 
wretch,  so  there  was  a  double  reason  for  me  not 
to  go  back. 

One  night  as  I  had  dressed  to  dine  out  and 
stepped  into  the  street,  looking  up  at  the  snow 
that  hid  the  stars  and  silenced  one's  footsteps  on 
the  pavement,  a  woman  emerged  from  the 
gloom,  and  before  I  knew  what  she  was  doing, 
had  caught  my  arm.  I  shook  her  off,  thinking 
her  a  beggar  or  something  worse,  and  would 
have  passed  on  my  way  had  she  not  again 
struggled  to  detain  me.  I  stopped,  and  was  on 
the  point  of  roughly  ordering  her  to  let  me  go, 
[168] 


THE    GOLDEN    CASTAWAYS 

when  I  looked  down  into  her  veiled  face  and 
saw  that  it  was  Teresa  Grossensteck. 

"  Hugo !  "  she  said.     "Hugo!" 

I  could  only  repeat  her  name  and  regard  her 
helplessly. 

"  Hugo,"  she  said,  "  I  am  cold.  Take  me 
upstairs.  I  am  chilled  through  and  through." 

"Oh,  but  Teresa,"  I  expostulated,  "it 
wouldn't  be  right.  You  know  it  wouldn't  be 
right.  You  might  be  seen." 

She  laid  her  hand,  her  ungloved,  icy  hand, 
against  my  cheek. 

"  I  have  been  here  an  hour,"  she  said. 
"  Take  me  to  your  rooms.  I  am  freezing." 

I  led  her  up  the  stairs  and  to  my  little  apart- 
ment. I  seated  her  before  the  fire,  turned  up 
the  lights,  and  stood  and  looked  at  her. 

"What  have  you  come  here  for?"  I  said. 
"I've  paid  your  father — paid  him  a  month  ago." 

She  made  no  answer,  but  spread  her  hands 
before  the  fire  and  shivered  in  the  glow.  She 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

kept  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  coals  in  front  of  her 
and  put  out  the  tips  of  her  little  slippered  feet. 
Then  I  perceived  that  she  was  in  a  ball  gown  and 
that  her  arms  were  bare  under  her  opera  cloak. 

At  last  she  broke  the  silence. 

"  How  cheerless  your  room  is,"  she  said, 
looking  about.  "  Oh,  how  cheerless!  " 

"  Did  you  come  here  to  tell  me  that?  "  I  said. 

"  No,"  she  said.  "  I  don't  know  why  I  came. 
Because  I  was  a  fool,  I  suppose — a  fool  to  think 
you'd  want  to  see  me.  Take  me  home,  Hugo." 
She  rose  as  she  said  this  and  looked  towards  the 
door.  I  pressed  her  to  take  a  little  whiskey,  for 
she  was  still  as  cold  as  death  and  as  white  as  the 
snow  queen  in  Hans  Andersen's  tale,  but  she 
refused  to  let  me  give  her  any. 

"  Take  me  home,  please,"  she  repeated. 

Her  carriage  was  waiting  a  block  away. 
Hendricks,  the  footman,  received  my  order  with 
impassivity  and  shut  us  in  together  with  the  un- 
concern of  a  good  servant.  It  was  dark  in  the 
[  170] 


THE     GOLDEN     CASTAWAYS 

carriage,  and  neither  of  us  spoke  as  we  whirled 
through  the  snowy  streets.  Once  the  lights  of  a 
passing  hansom  illumined  my  companion's  face 
and  I  saw  that  she  was  crying.  It  pleased  me 
to  see  her  suffer;  she  had  cost  me  eleven  weeks 
of  misery;  why  should  she  escape  scot-free! 

"  Hugo,"  she  said,  "  are  you  coming  back  to 
us,  Hugo?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  I  said. 

"  Why  don't  you  know?  "  she  asked. 

"Oh,  because!"  I  said. 

"  That's  no  answer,"  she  said. 

There  was  a  pause. 

"  I  was  beginning  to  care  too  much  about 
you,"  I  said.  "  I  think  I  was  beginning  to  fall 
hi  love  with  you.  I've  got  out  of  one  false 
position.  Why  should  I  blunder  into  another?  " 

"  Would  it  be  a  false  position  to  love  me?  " 
she  said. 

"  Of  course  that  would  a  good  deal  depend 
on  you,"  I  said. 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

"  Suppose  I  wanted  you  to,"  she  said. 

"  Oh,  but  you  couldn't!  "  I  said. 

"Why  couldn't  I?  "she  said. 

"  But  forty,"  I  objected;  "  nobody  loves  any- 
body who's  forty,  you  know." 

"  I  do,"  she  said,  "  though,  come  to  think  of 
it,  you  were  thirty-nine — when — when  it  first 
happened,  Hugo." 

I  put  out  my  arms  in  the  dark  and  caught  her 
to  me.  I  could  not  believe  my  own  good  fortune 
as  I  felt  her  trembling  and  crying  against  my 
breast.  I  was  humbled  and  ashamed.  It  was 
like  a  dream.  An  old  fellow  like  me — forty, 
you  know. 

"  It  was  a  mighty  near  thing,  Teresa,"  I  said. 

"  I  guess  it  was — for  me !  "  she  said. 

"  I  meant  myself,  sweetheart,"  I  said. 

"  For  both  of  us  then,"  she  said,  in  a  voice 
between  laughter  and  tears,  and  impulsively  put 
her  arms  round  my  neck. 


THE    AWAKENING    OF    GEORGE 
RAYMOND 


THE    AWAKENING   OF    GEORGE 
RAYMOND 

I 

GEORGE  RAYMOND'S  father  had 
been  a  rich  man,  rich  in  those  days 
before  the  word  millionaire  had  been 
invented,  and  when  a  modest  hundred  thousand, 
lent  out  at  an  interest  varying  from  ten  to  fifteen 
per  cent,  brought  in  an  income  that  placed  its 
possessor  on  the  lower  steps  of  affluence.  He 
was  the  banker  of  a  small  New  Jersey  town,  a 
man  of  portentous  respectability,  who  proffered 
two  fingers  to  his  poorer  clients  and  spoke  about 
the  weather  as  though  it  belonged  to  him. 
When  the  school-children  read  of  Croesus  in 
their  mythology,  it  was  Jacob  Raymond  they 
saw  in  their  mind's  eye;  such  expressions  as 
"  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice  "  suggested 

[175] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

him  as  inevitably  as  pumpkin  did  pie;  they 
wondered  -doubtfully  about  him  in  church  when 
that  unfortunate  matter  of  the  camel  was 
brought  up  with  its  attendant  difficulties  for  the 
wealthy.  Even  Captain  Kidd's  treasure,  in 
those  times  so  actively  sought  for  along  the 
whole  stretch  of  the  New  England  coast,  con- 
jured up  a  small  brick  building  with  "  Jacob 
Raymond,  Banker  "  in  gilt  letters  above  the  lin- 
tel of  the  door. 

But  there  came  a  day  when  that  door  stayed 
locked  and  a  hundred  white  faces  gathered  about 
it,  blocking  the  village  street  and  talking  in 
whispers  though  the  noonday  sun  was  shining. 
Raymond's  bank  was  insolvent,  and  the  banker 
himself,  a  fugitive  in  tarry  sea  clothes,  was  haul- 
ing ropes  on  a  vessel  outward  bound  for  Callao. 
He  might  have  stayed  in  Middleborough  and 
braved  it  out,  for  he  had  robbed  no  man  and  his 
personal  honour  was  untarnished,  having  suc- 
cumbed without  dishonesty  to  primitive  methods 


THE     AWAKEN  ING 

and  lack  of  capital.  But  he  chose  instead  the 
meaner  course  of  flight.  Of  all  the  reproachful 
faces  he  left  behind  him  his  wife's  was  the  one 
he  felt  himself  the  least  able  to  confront;  and 
thus,  abandoning  everything,  with  hardly  a 
dozen  dollars  in  his  pocket,  he  slipped  away  to 
sea,  never  to  be  seen  or  heard  of  again. 

Mrs.  Raymond  was  a  woman  of  forty-five,  a 
New  Englander  to  her  finger-tips,  proud,  ar- 
rogant, and  fiercely  honest;  a  woman  who  never 
forgot,  never  forgave,  and  who  practised  her 
narrow  Christianity  with  the  unrelentingness  of 
an  Indian.  She  lived  up  to  an  austere  standard 
herself,  and  woe  betide  those  who  fell  one  whit 
behind  her.  She  was  one  of  those  just  persons 
who  would  have  cast  the  first  stone  at  the  dic- 
tates of  conscience  and  with  a  sort  of  holy  joy 
in  her  own  fitness  to  do  so.  For  years  she  had 
been  the  richest  woman  in  Middleborough,  the 
head  of  everything  charitable  and  religious,  the 
mainstay  of  ministers,  the  court  of  final  appeal 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

in  the  case  of  sinners  and  backsliders.  Now,  in 
a  moment,  through  no  fault  of  her  own,  the 
whole  fabric  of  her  life  had  crumbled.  Again 
had  the  mighty  fallen. 

She  had  not  a  spark  of  pity  for  her  husband. 
To  owe  what  you  could  not  pay  was  to  her  the 
height  of  dishonour.  It  was  theft,  and  she  had 
no  compunction  in  giving  it  the  name,  however 
it  might  be  disguised  or  palliated.  She  could 
see  no  mitigating  circumstances  in  Raymond's 
disgrace,  and  the  fact  that  she  was  innocently 
involved  in  his  downfall  filled  her  with  exaspera- 
tion. The  big  old  corner  house  was  her  own. 
She  had  been  born  in  it.  It  had  been  her  mar- 
riage portion  from  her  father.  She  put  it 
straightway  under  the  hammer;  her  canal  stock 
with  it;  her  furniture  and  linen;  a  row  of  five 
little  cottages  on  the  outskirts  of  the  town  where 
five  poor  families  had  found  not  only  that  their 
bodies,  but  the  welfare  of  their  souls,  had  been 
confided  to  her  grim  keeping.  She  stripped  her- 
[178] 


THE     AWAKE  NING 

self  of  everything,  and  when  all  had  been  made 
over  to  the  creditors  there  still  remained  a 
deficit  of  seventeen  hundred  dollars.  This  debt 
which  was  not  a  debt,  for  she  was  under  no  legal 
compulsion  to  pay  a  penny  of  it,  would  willingly 
have  been  condoned  by  men  already  grateful  for 
her  generosity;  but  she  would  hear  of  no  such 
compromise,  not  even  that  her  notes  be  free  of 
interest,  and  she  gave  them  at  five  per  cent, 
resolute  that  in  time  she  would  redeem  them  to 
the  uttermost  farthing. 

Under  these  sudden  changes  of  fortune  it  is 
seldom  that  the  sufferer  remains  amid  the  ruins 
of  past  prosperity.  The  human  instinct  is  to  fly 
and  hide.  The  wound  heals  more  readily 
amongst  strangers.  The  material  evils  of  life 
are  never  so  intolerable  as  the  public  loss  of 
caste.  It  may  be  said  that  it  is  people,  not 
things,  which  cause  most  of  the  world's  un- 
happiness.  Mrs.  Raymond  came  to  New  York, 
where  she  had  not  a  friend  except  the  son  she 
[  179] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

brought  with  her,  there  to  set  herself  with  an 
undaunted  heart  to  earn  the  seventeen  hundred 
dollars  she  had  voluntarily  taken  on  her  shoul- 
ders to  repay. 

George  Raymond,  her  son,  was  then  a  boy  of 
fifteen.  High-strung,  high-spirited,  with  all  the 
seriousness  of  a  youngster  who  had  prematurely 
learned  to  think  for  himself,  he  had  arrived  at 
the  age  when  ineffaceable  impressions  are  made 
and  the  tendencies  of  a  lifetime  decided.  Pas- 
sionately attached  to  his  father,  he  had  lost  him 
in  a  way  that  would  have  made  death  seem 
preferable.  He  saw  his  mother,  so  shortly 
before  the  great  lady  of  a  little  town,  working 
out  like  a  servant  in  other  people's  houses.  The 
tragedy  of  it  all  ate  into  his  soul  and  overcame 
him  with  a  sense  of  hopelessness  and  despair. 
It  would  not  have  been  so  hard  could  he  have 
helped,  even  in  a  small  way,  towards  the  re- 
covery of  their  fortunes;  but  his  mother,  faithful 
even  in  direst  poverty  to  her  New  England 
[180] 


THE     AWAKE  NING 

blood,  sent  him  to  school,  determined  that  at 
any  sacrifice  he  should  finish  his  education.  But 
by  degrees  Mrs.  Raymond  drifted  into  another 
class  of  work.  She  became  a  nurse,  and,  in  a 
situation  where  her  conscientiousness  was  in- 
valuable, slowly  established  a  connection  that  in 
time  kept  her  constantly  busy.  She  won  the 
regard  of  an  important  physician,  and  not  only 
won  it  but  kept  it,  and  thus  little  by  little  found 
her  way  into  good  houses,  where  she  was  highly 
paid  and  treated  with  consideration. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  seventeen  hundred 
dollars  and  the  five  per  cent  interest  upon  it,  she 
could  have  earned  enough  to  keep  herself  and 
her  son  very  comfortable  in  the  three  rooms  they 
occupied  on  Seventh  Street.  But  this  debt,  ever 
present  in  the  minds  of  both  mother  and  son, 
hung  over  them  like  a  cloud  and  took  every 
penny  there  was  to  spare.  Those  two  years 
from  fifteen  to  seventeen  were  the  most  terrible 
in  Raymond's  life.  At  an  age  when  he  possessed 
[181] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

neither  philosophy  nor  knowledge  and  yet  the 
fullest  capacity  to  suffer,  he  had  to  bear,  with 
what  courage  he  could  muster,  the  crudest  buf- 
fets of  an  adverse  fate. 

Raymond  drudged  at  his  books,  passed  from 
class  to  class  and  returned  at  night  to  the  empty 
rooms  he  called  home,  where  he  cooked  his  own 
meals  and  sat  solitary  beside  the  candle  until  it 
was  the  hour  for  bed.  His  mother  was  seldom 
there  to  greet  him.  As  a  nurse  she  was  kept 
prisoner,  for  weeks  at  a  time,  in  the  houses  where 
she  was  engaged.  It  meant  much  to  the  boy  to 
find  a  note  from  her  lying  on  the  table  when  he 
returned  at  night;  more  still  to  wait  at  street 
corners  in  his  shabby  overcoat  for  those  appoint- 
ments she  often  made  with  him.  When  she 
took  infectious  cases  and  dared  neither  write  nor 
speak  to  him,  they  had  an  hour  planned  before- 
hand when  she  would  smile  at  him  from  an  open 
window  and  wave  her  hand. 

But  she  was  not  invariably  busy.  There  were 
[182] 


THE    AWAKENING 

intervals  between  her  engagements  when  she  re- 
mained at  home;  when  those  rooms,  ordinarily 
so  lonely  and  still,  took  on  a  wonderful  bright- 
ness with  her  presence ;  when  Raymond,  coming 
back  from  school  late  in  the  afternoon,  ran  along 
the  streets  singing,  as  he  thought  of  his  mother 
awaiting  him.  This  stern  woman,  the  harsh 
daughter  of  a  harsh  race,  had  but  a  single  streak 
of  tenderness  in  her  withered  heart.  To  her 
son  she  gave  transcendent  love,  and  the  whole  of 
her  starved  nature  went  out  to  him  in  im- 
measurable devotion.  Their  poverty,  the 
absence  of  all  friends,  the  burden  of  debt,  the 
unacknowledged  disgrace,  and  (harder  still  to 
bear)  the  long  and  enforced  separations  from 
each  other,  all  served  to  draw  the  pair  into  the 
closest  intimacy.  Raymond  grew  towards  man- 
hood without  ever  having  met  a  girl  of  his  own 
age;  without  ever  having  had  a  chum;  without 
knowing  the  least  thing  of  youth  save  much  of 
its  green-sickness  and  longing. 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

When  the  great  debt  had  been  paid  off  and 
the  last  of  the  notes  cancelled  there  came  no  cor- 
responding alleviation  of  their  straitened  cir- 
cumstances. Raymond  had  graduated  from  the 
High  School  and  was  taking  the  medical  course 
at  Columbia  University.  Every  penny  was  put 
by  for  the  unavoidable  expenses  of  his  tuition. 
The  mother,  shrewd,  ambitious,  and  far-seeing, 
was  staking  everything  against  the  future,  and 
was  wise  enough  to  sacrifice  the  present  in  order 
to  launch  her  son  into  a  profession.  In  those 
days  fresh  air  had  not  been  discovered. 
Athletics,  then  in  their  infancy,  were  regarded 
much  as  we  now  do  prize-fighting.  The  ideal 
student  was  a  pale  individual  who  wore  out  the 
night  with  cold  towels  around  his  head,  and  who 
had  a  bigger  appetite  for  books  than  for  meat. 
Docile,  unquestioning,  knowing  no  law  but  his 
mother's  wish ;  eager  to  earn  her  commendation 
and  to  repay  with  usury  the  immense  sacrifices 
she  had  made  for  him,  Raymond  worked  him- 


THE    AWAKENING 

self  to  a  shadow  with  study,  and  at  nineteen  was 
a  tall,  thin,  narrow-shouldered  young  man  with 
sunken  cheeks  and  a  preternatural  whiteness  of 
complexion. 

He  was  far  from  being  a  bad-looking  fellow, 
however.  He  had  beautiful  blue  eyes,  more  like 
a  girl's  than  a  man's,  and  there  was  something 
earnest  and  winning  in  his  face  that  often  got 
him  a  shy  glance  on  the  street  from  passing 
women.  His  acquaintance  in  this  direction  went 
no  further.  Many  times  when  a  college  acquaint- 
ance would  have  included  him  in  some  little 
party,  his  mother  had  peremptorily  refused  to 
let  him  go.  Her  face  would  darken  with  jealousy 
and  anger,  nor  was  she  backward  with  a  string 
of  reasons  for  her  refusal.  It  would  unsettle 
him;  he  had  no  money  to  waste  on  girls;  he 
would  be  shamed  by  his  shabby  clothes  and  un- 
gloved hands;  they  would  laugh  at  him  behind 
his  back;  was  he  tired,  then,  of  his  old  mother 
who  had  worked  so  hard  to  bring  him  up 
[185] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

decently?  And  so  on  and  so  on,  until,  without 
knowing  exactly  why,  Raymond  would  feel  him- 
self terribly  in  the  wrong,  and  was  glad  enough 
at  last  to  be  forgiven  on  the  understanding  that 
he  would  never  propose  such  a  reprehensible 
thing  again. 

In  any  other  young  man,  brought  up  in  the 
ordinary  way,  with  the  ordinary  advantages, 
such  submission  would  have  seemed  mean- 
spirited;  but  the  bond  between  these  two  was 
riveted  with  memories  of  penury  and  privation; 
any  appeal  to  those  black  days  brought  Ray- 
mond on  his  knees;  it  was  intolerable  to  him 
that  he  should  ever  cause  a  pang  in  his  dear 
mother's  breast.  Thus,  at  the  age  when  the 
heart  is  hungriest  for  companionship ;  when  for 
the  first  time  a  young  man  seems  to  discover  the 
existence  of  a  hitherto  unknown  and  unimpor- 
tant sex;  when  an  inner  voice  urges  him  to  take 
his  place  in  the  ranks  and  keep  step  with 
the  mighty  army  of  his  generation,  Raymond 
[186] 


THE     AWAKENING 

was  doomed  to  walk  alone,  a  wistful  outcast, 
regarding  his  enviable  companions  from 
afar. 

He  was  in  his  second  year  at  college  when  his 
studies  were  broken  off  by  his  mother's  illness. 
He  was  suddenly  called  home  to  find  her  delir- 
ious in  bed,  struck  down  in  the  full  tide  of 
strength  by  the  disease  she  had  taken  from  a 
patient.  It  was  scarlet  fever,  and  when  it  had 
run  its  course  the  doctor  took  him  to  one  side 
and  told  him  that  his  mother's  nursing  days  were 
over.  During  her  tedious  convalescence,  as 
Raymond  would  sit  beside  her  bed  and  read 
aloud  to  her,  their  eyes  were  constantly  meeting 
in  unspoken  apprehension.  They  saw  the 
ground,  so  solid  a  month  before,  now  crumbling 
beneath  their  feet;  their  struggles,  their  make- 
shifts, their  starved  and  meagre  life  had  all  been 
in  vain.  Their  little  savings  were  gone;  the 
breadwinner,  tempting  fate  once  too  often,  had 
received  what  was  to  her  worse  than  a  mortal 
[187] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

wound,  for  the  means  of  livelihood  had  been 
taken  from  her. 

"  Could  I  have  but  died,"  she  repeated  to  her- 
self. "  Oh,  could  I  have  but  died !  " 

Raymond  laid  his  head  against  the  coverlet 
and  sobbed.  He  needed  no  words  to  tell  him 
what  was  in  her  mind;  that  her  illness  had  used 
up  the  little  money  there  was  to  spare ;  that  she, 
so  long  the  support  of  both,  was  now  a  helpless 
burden  on  his  hands.  Pity  for  her  outweighed 
every  other  consideration.  His  own  loss  seemed 
but  little  in  comparison  to  hers.  It  was  the  con- 
cluding tragedy  of  those  five  tragic  years.  The 
battle,  through  no  fault  of  theirs,  had  gone 
against  them.  The  dream  of  a  professional 
career  was  over. 

His  mother  grew  better.  The  doctor  ceased 
his  visits.  She  was  able  to  get  on  her  feet  again. 
She  took  over  their  pinched  housekeeping. 
But  her  step  was  heavy;  the  gaunt,  grim 
straight-backed  woman,  with  her  thin  grey  hair 
[188] 


THE     AWAKENING 

and  set  mouth,  was  no  more  than  a  spectre  of 
her  former  self.  The  doctor  was  right.  There 
was  nothing  before  her  but  lifelong  invalidism. 

Raymond  found  work;  a  place  in  the  auditing 
department  of  a  railroad,  with  a  salary  to  begin 
with  of  sixty  dollars  a  month;  in  ten  years  he 
might  hope  to  get  a  hundred.  But  he  was  one 
of  those  whose  back  bent  easily  to  misfortune. 
Heaven  knew,  he  had  been  schooled  long  enough 
to  take  its  blows  with  fortitude.  His  mother 
and  he  could  manage  comfortably  on  sixty  dol- 
lars a  month ;  and  when  he  laid  his  first  earnings 
in  her  hand  he  even  smiled  with  satisfaction. 
She  took  the  money  in  silence,  her  heart  too  full 
to  ask  him  whence  it  came.  She  had  hoped 
against  hope  until  that  moment;  and  the  bills, 
as  she  looked  at  them,  seemed  to  sting  her 
shrivelled  hand. 

One  day,  as  she  was  cleaning  her  son's  room, 
she  opened  a  box  that  stood  in  the  corner,  and 
was  surprised  to  find  it  contain  a  package  done 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

up  in  wrapping  paper.  She  opened  it  with 
curiosity  and  the  tears  sprang  to  her  eyes  as  she 
saw  the  second-hand  medical  books  George  had 
used  at  college.  Here  they  were,  in  neat  wrap- 
pers, laid  by  for  ever.  Too  precious  to  throw 
away,  too  articulate  of  unfulfilled  ambitions  to 
stand  exposed  on  shelves,  they  had  been  laid 
away  in  the  grave  of  her  son's  hopes.  She  did 
them  up  again  with  trembling  fingers,  and  that 
night  when  George  returned  to  supper,  he  found 
his  mother  in  the  dark,  crying. 

II 

In  the  years  from  nineteen  to  rorty-two  most 
men  have  fulfilled  their  destiny ;  those  who  have 
had  within  them  the  ability  to  rise  have  risen; 
the  weak,  the  wastrels,  the  mediocrities  have 
shaken  down  into  their  appointed  places.  Even 
the  bummer  has  his  own  particular  bit  of  wall 
in  front  of  the  saloon  and  his  own  particular 
chair  within.  Those  who  have  something  to  do 
C  190  ] 


THE     AWAKENING 

are  busy  doing  it,  whatever  it  may  be.  In  the 
human  comedy  everyone  in  time  finds  his  role 
and  must  play  it  to  the  end,  happy  indeed  if  he 
be  cast  in  a  part  that  at  all  suits  him. 

George  Raymond  at  forty-two  was  still  in  the 
auditor's  department  of  the  New  York  Central. 
Time  had  wrinkled  his  cheek,  had  turned  his 
brown  hair  to  a  crisp  grey,  had  bowed  his 
shoulders  to  the  desk  he  had  used  for  twenty-two 
years.  His  eyes  alone  retained  their  boyish 
brightness,  and  a  sort  of  appealing  look  as  of 
one  who  his  whole  life  long  had  been  a  depend- 
ent on  other  people.  As  an  automaton,  a 
mere  cog  in  a  vast  machine,  he  had  won  the 
praise  of  his  superiors  by  his  complete  self- 
effacement.  He  was  never  ill,  never  absent, 
never  had  trouble  with  his  subordinates,  never 
talked  back,  never  made  complaints,  and,  in  the 
flattering  language  of  the  superintendent,  "  he 
knew  what  he  knew !  " 

In  the  office,  as  in  every  other  aggregation  of 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

human  beings,  there  were  coteries,  cliques, 
friendships  and  hatreds,  jealousies,  heart-burn- 
ings and  vendettas.  There  was  scarcely  a  man 
there  without  friends  or  foes.  Raymond  alone 
had  neither.  To  the  others  he  was  a  strange, 
silent,  unknown  creature  whose  very  address  was 
a  matter  of  conjecture;  a  man  who  did. not  drink, 
did  not  smoke,  did  not  talk;  who  ate  four 
bananas  for  his  lunch  and  invariably  carried  a 
book  in  the  pocket  of  his  shabby  coat.  It  was 
said  of  him  that  once,  during  a  terrible  blizzard, 
he  had  been  the  only  clerk  to  reach  the  office; 
that  he  had  worked  there  stark  alone  until  one 
o'clock,  when  at  the  stroke  of  the  hour  he  had 
taken  out  his  four  bananas  and  his  book !  There 
were  other  stories  about  him  of  the  same  kind, 
not  all  of  them  true  to  fate,  but  essentially  true 
of  the  man's  nature  and  of  his  rigid  adherence 
to  routine.  He  had  risen,  place  by  place,  to  a 
position  that  gave  him  a  hundred  and  fifty  dol- 
lars a  month,  and  one  so  responsible  that  his 
[  192] 


THE    AWAKENING 

death  or  absence  would  have  dislocated  the  office 
for  half  a  day. 

"  A  first-class  man  and  an  authority  on  pro 
ratas!  " 

Such  might  have  been  the  inscription  on 
George  Raymond's  tomb ! 

His  mother  was  still  alive.  She  had  never 
entirely  regained  her  health  or  her  strength,  and 
it  took  all  the  little  she  had  of  either  to  do  the 
necessary  housekeeping  for  herself  and  her  son. 
Thin  to  emaciation,  sharp-tongued,  a  tyrant  to 
her  finger-tips,  her  indomitable  spirit  remained 
as  uncowed  as  ever  and  she  ruled  her  son  with  a 
rod  of  iron.  To  her,  Georgie,  as  she  always 
called  him,  was  still  a  child.  As  far  as  she  was 
concerned  he  had  never  grown  up.  She  took 
his  month's  salary,  told  him  when  to  buy  new 
shirts,  ordered  his  clothes  herself,  doled  out 
warningly  the  few  dollars  for  his  necessaries, 
and  saved,  saved,  continually  saved.  The  old 
woman  dreaded  poverty  with  a  horror  not  to  be 

[193] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

expressed  in  words.  It  had  ruined  her  own 
life;  it  had  crushed  her  son  under  its  merciless 
wheels;  in  the  words  of  the  proverb,  she  was  the 
coward  who  died  a  thousand  deaths  in  the 
agonies  of  apprehension.  She  was  one  of  those 
not  uncommon  misers,  who  hoard,  not  for  love 
of  money,  but  through  fear.  She  had  managed, 
with  penurious  thrift  and  a  self-denial  almost 
sublime  in  its  austerity,  to  set  aside  eight  thou- 
sand dollars.  Eight  thousand  dollars  from  an 
income  that  began  at  sixty  and  rose  to  a  little 
under  three  times  that  amount!  Eight  thou- 
sand dollars,  wrung  from  their  lives  at  the 
price  of  every  joy,  every  alleviation,  every- 
thing that  could  make  the  world  barely  toler- 
able. 

Every  summer  Raymond  had  a  two-weeks' 
holiday,  which  he  spent  at  Middleborough  with 
some  relatives  of  his  father's.  He  had  the 
pronounced  love  of  the  sea  that  is  usual  with 
those  born  and  bred  in  seaport  towns.  His 
[  194] 


THE     AWAKENING 

earliest  memories  went  back  to  great  deep-water 
ships,  their  jib-booms  poking  into  the  second- 
story  windows  of  the  city  front,  their  decks 
hoarsely  melodious  with  the  yo-heave-yo  of 
straining  seamen.  The  smell  of  tar,  the  sight 
of  enormous  anchors  impending  above  the  nar- 
row street,  the  lofty  masts  piercing  the  sky  in  a 
tangle  of  ropes  and  blocks,  the  exotic  cargoes 
mountains  high — all  moved  him  like  a  poem. 
He  knew  no  pleasure  like  that  of  sailing  his  cou- 
sin's sloop;  he  loved  every  plank  of  her  dainty 
hull;  it  was  to  him  a  privilege  to  lay  his  hand  to 
any  task  appertaining  to  her,  however  humble 
or  hard.  To  calk,  to  paint,  to  polish  brass- 
work;  to  pump  out  bilge;  to  set  up  the  rigging; 
to  sit  cross-legged  and  patch  sails;  and,  best  of 
all,  to  put  her  lee  rail  under  in  a  spanking  breeze 
and  race  her  seaward  against  the  mimic  fleet — 
Ah,  how  swiftly  those  bright  days  passed,  how 
bitter  was  the  parting  and  the  return,  all  too 
soon,  to  the  dingy  offices  of  the  railroad. 

[195] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

It  never  occurred  to  him  to  think  his  own  lot 
hard,  or  to  contrast  himself  with  other  men  of 
his  age,  who  at  forty-two  were  mostly  substan- 
tial members  of  society,  with  interests,  obliga- 
tions, responsibilities,  to  which  he  himself  was 
an  utter  stranger.  Under  the  iron  bondage  of 
his  mother  he  had  remained  a  child.  To  dis- 
please her  seemed  the  worst  thing  that  could 
befall  him;  to  win  her  commendation  filled  him 
with  content.  But  there  were  times,  guiltily  re- 
membered and  put  by  with  shame,  when  he 
longed  for  something  more  from  life;  when  the 
sight  of  a  beautiful  woman  on  the  street  re- 
minded him  of  his  own  loneliness  and  isolation; 
when  he  was  overcome  with  a  sudden  surging 
sense  that  he  was  an  outsider  in  the  midst  of 
these  teeming  thousands,  unloved  and  old,  with- 
out friends  or  hope  or  future  to  look  forward  to. 
He  would  reproach  himself  for  such  lawless  re- 
pining, for  such  disloyalty  to  his  mother.  Was 
not  her  case  worse  than  his?  Did  she  not  lee- 


THE     AWAKENING 

ture  him  on  the  duty  of  cheerfulness,  she  the 
invalid,  racked  with  pains,  with  nerves,  who 
practised  so  pitifully  what  she  preached?  The 
tears  would  come  to  his  eyes.  No,  he  would 
not  ask  the  impossible;  he  would  go  his  way, 
brave  and  uncomplaining,  and  let  the  empty 
years  roll  over  his  head  without  a  murmur 
against  fate. 

But  the  years,  apparently  so  void,  were  screen- 
ing a  strange  and  undreamed-of  part  for  him  to 
play.  The  Spaniards,  a  vague,  almost  legend- 
ary people,  as  remote  from  Raymond's  life  as  the 
Assamese  or  the  cliff-dwellers  of  New  Mexico, 
began  to  take  on  a  concrete  character,  and  were 
suddenly  discovered  to  be  the  enemies  of  the 
human  race.  Raymond  grew  accustomed  to  the 
sight  of  Cuban  flags,  at  first  so  unfamiliar,  and 
then,  later,  so  touching  in  their  significance. 
Newspaper  pictures  of  Gomez  and  Garcia  were 
tacked  on  the  homely  walls  of  barber-shops,  in 
railroad  shops,  in  grubby  offices  and  cargo  eleva- 
[197] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

tors,  and  with  them  savage  caricatures  of  a  per- 
son called  Weyler,  and  referring  bitterly  to 
other  persons  (who  seemed  in  a  bad  way)  called 
the  reconcentrados.  Raymond  wondered  what 
it  was  all  about;  bought  books  to  elucidate  the 
matter;  took  fire  with  indignation  and  resent- 
ment. Then  came  the  Maine  affair;  the  sus- 
pense of  seventy  million  people  eager  to  avenge 
their  dead;  the  decision  of  the  court  of  inquiry; 
the  emergency  vote;  the  preparation  for  war. 
Raymond  watched  it  all  with  a  curious  detach- 
ment. He  never  realised  that  it  could  have 
anything  personally  to  do  with  him.  The  long 
days  in  the  auditor's  department  went  on  undis- 
turbed for  all  that  the  country  was  arming  and 
the  State  governors  were  calling  out  their  quotas 
of  men.  Two  of  his  associates  quitted  their 
desks  and  changed  their  black  coats  for  army 
blue.  Raymond  admired  them;  envied  them; 
but  it  never  occurred  to  him  to  ask  why  they 
should  go  and  he  should  stay.  It  was  natural 
[198] 


THE     AWAKENING 

for  him  to  stay;  it  was  inevitable;  he  was  as 
much  a  part  of  the  office  as  the  office  floor. 

One  afternoon,  going  home  on  the  Elevated, 
he  overheard  two  men  talking. 

"  I  don't  know  what  we'll  do,"  said  one. 

"  Oh,  there  are  lots  of  men,"  said  the  other. 

"  Men,  yes — but  no  sailors,"  said  the  first. 

"  That's  right,"  said  the  other. 

"  We  are  at  our  wits'  end  to  man  the  new 
ships,"  said  the  first. 

"What  did  you  total  up  to-day?"  said  the 
other. 

His  companion  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  Eighty  applicants,  and  seven  taken,"  he 
said. 

"  And  those  foreigners?  " 

"All  but  two!" 

"  There's  danger  in  that  kind  of  thing!  " 

"  Yes,  indeed,  but  what  can  you  do?  " 

The  words  rang  in  Raymond's  head.  That 
night  he  hardly  slept.  He  was  in  the  throes  of 
[  199] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

making  a  tremendous  resolution,  he  who,  for 
forty  years,  had  been  tied  to  his  mother's  apron 
string.  Making  it  of  his  own  volition,  un- 
prompted, at  the  behest  of  no  one  save,  perhaps, 
the  man  in  the  car,  asserting  at  last  his  manhood 
in  defiance  of  the  subjection  that  had  never  come 
home  to  him  until  that  moment.  He  rose  in 
the  morning,  pale  and  determined.  He  felt  a 
hypocrite  through  and  through  as  his  mother 
commented  on  his  looks  and  grew  anxious  as 
he  pushed  away  his  untasted  breakfast.  It  came 
over  him  afresh  how  good  she  was,  how  tender. 
He  did  not  love  her  less  because  his  great  pur- 
pose had  been  taken.  He  knew  how  she  would 
suffer,  and  the  thought  of  it  racked  his  heart; 
he  was  tempted  to  take  her  into  his  confidence, 
but  dared  not,  distrusting  his  own  powers  of  re- 
sistance were  she  to  say  no.  So  he  kissed  her 
instead,  with  greater  warmth  than  usual,  and 
left  the  house  with  misty  eyes. 

He  got  an  extension  of  the  noon  hour  and 
[  200] 


THE     AWAKENING 

hurried  down  to  the  naval  recruiting  office.  It 
was  doing  a  brisk  business  in  turning  away  ap- 
plicants, and  from  the  bottom  of  the  line  Ray- 
mond was  not  kept  waiting  long  before  he  at- 
tained the  top ;  and  from  thence  in  his  turn  was 
led  into  an  inner  office.  He  was  briefly  exam- 
ined as  to  his  sea  experience.  Could  he  box  the 
compass?  He  could.  Could  he  make  a  long 
splice?  He  could.  What  was  meant  by  the 
monkey-gaff  of  a  full-rigged  ship?  He  told 
them.  What  was  his  reason  in  wanting  to  join 
the  Navy?  Because  he  thought  he'd  like  to  do 
something  for  his  country.  Very  good;  turn 
him  over  to  the  doctor ;  next !  Then  the  doctor 
weighed  him,  looked  at  his  teeth,  hit  him  in  the 
chest,  listened  to  his  heart,  thumped  and  ques- 
tioned him,  and  then  passed  him  on  to  a  third 
person  to  be  enrolled. 

When  George  Raymond  emerged  into  the 
open  air  it  was  as  a  full  A  B  in  the  service  of 
the  United  States 

[201] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

This  announcement  at  the  office  made  an  ex- 
traordinary sensation.  Men  he  hardly  knew 
shook  hands  with  him  and  clapped  him  on  the 
back.  He  was  taken  upstairs  to  be  impressively 
informed  that  his  position  would  be  held  open 
for  him.  On  every  side  he  saw  kindling  faces, 
smiling  glances  of  approbation,  the  quick  pass- 
ing of  the  news  in  whispers.  He  had  suddenly 
risen  from  obscurity  to  become  part  of  the  War; 
the  heir  of  a  wonderful  and  possibly  tragic 
future ;  a  patriot ;  a  hero !  It  was  a  bewildering 
experience  and  not  without  its  charm.  He  was 
surprised  to  find  himself  still  the  same  man. 

The  scene  at  home  was  less  enthusiastic.  It 
was  even  mortifying,  and  Georgie,  as  his  mother 
invariably  called  him,  had  to  endure  a  storm  of 
sarcasm  and  reproaches.  The  old  woman's  ar- 
dent patriotism  stopped  short  at  giving  up  her 
son.  It  was  the  duty  of  others  to  fight, 
Georgie's  to  stay  at  home  with  his  mother.  He 
let  her  talk  herself  out,  saying  little,  but 
[  202  ] 


THE    AWAKENING 

regarding  her  with  a  grave,  kind  obstinacy. 
Then  she  broke  down,  weeping  and  clinging  to 
him.  Somehow,  though  he  could  hardly  explain 
it  to  himself,  the  relation  between  the  two  under- 
went a  change.  He  left  that  house  the  un- 
questioned master  of  himself,  the  acknowledged 
head  of  that  tiny  household;  he  had  won,  and 
his  victory  instead  of  abating  by  a  hair's-breadth 
his  mother's  love  for  him  had  drawn  the  pair 
closer  to  each  other  than  ever  before.  Though 
she  had  no  articulate  conception  of  it  Georgie 
had  risen  enormously  in  his  mother's  respect. 
The  woman  had  given  way  to  the  man,  and  the 
eternal  fitness  of  things  had  been  vindicated. 

Her  tenderness  and  devotion  were  redoubled. 
Never  had  there  been  such  a  son  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  She  relaxed  her  economies  in  order 
to  buy  him  little  delicacies,  such  as  sardines 
and  pickles;  and  when  soon  after  his  enlistment 
his  uniform  came  home  she  spread  it  on  her  bed 
and  cried,  and  then  sank  on  her  knees,  passion- 
[203] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

ately  kissing  the  coarse  serge.  In  the  limitation 
of  her  horizon  she  could  see  but  a  single  figure. 
It  was  Georgie's  country,  Georgie's  President, 
Georgie's  fleet,  Georgie's  righteous  quarrel  in 
the  cause  of  stifled  freedom.  To  her,  it  was 
Georgie's  war  with  Spain. 

He  was  drafted  aboard  the  Dixie,  where, 
within  a  week  of  his  joining,  he  was  promoted 
to  be  one  of  the  four  quartermasters.  So  much 
older  than  the  majority  of  his  comrades,  quick, 
alert,  obedient,  and  responsible,  be  was  naturally 
amongst  the  first  chosen  for  what  are  called 
leading  seamen.  Never  was  a  man  more  in  his 
element  than  George  Raymond.  He  shook 
down  into  naval  life  like  one  born  to  it.  The 
sea  was  in  his  blood,  and  his  translation  from 
the  auditor's  department  to  the  deck  of  a  fight- 
ing ship  seemed  to  him  like  one  of  those  happy 
dreams  when  one  pinches  himself  to  try  and 
confirm  the  impossible.  Metaphorically  speak- 
ing, he  was  always  pinching  himself  and  con- 
[204] 


THE    AWAKENING 

trasting  the  monotonous  past  with  the  glorious 
and  animated  present.  The  change  told  in  his 
manner,  in  the  tilt  of  his  head,  in  his  fearless 
eyes  and  straighter  back.  It  comes  natural 
to  heroes  to  protrude  their  chests  and  walk  upon 
air;  and  it  is  pardonable,  indeed,  in  war  time, 
when  each  feels  himself  responsible  for  a  frac- 
tion of  his  country's  honour. 

"  Georgie,  you  are  positively  becoming  hand- 
some," said  his  mother. 

Amongst  Raymond's  comrades  on  the  Dixie 
was  a  youngster  of  twenty-one,  named  Howard 
Quintan.  Something  attracted  him  in  the  boy, 
and  he  went  out  of  his  way  to  make  things 
smooth  for  him  aboard.  The  liking  was  no  less 
cordially  returned,  and  the  two  became  fast 
friends.  One  day,  when  they  were  both  given 
liberty  together,  Howard  insisted  on  taking  him 
to  his  own  home. 

"The  folks  want  to  know  you,"  he  said. 
'  They  naturally  think  a  heap  of  you  because  I 
[205] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

do,  and  I've  told  them  how  good  you've  been 
and  all  that." 

44  Oh,  rubbish !  "  said  Raymond,  though  he 
was  inwardly  pleased.  At  the  time  they  were 
walking  up  Fifth  Avenue,  both  in  uniform,  with 
their  caps  on  one  side,  sailor  fashion,  and  their 
wide  trousers  flapping  about  their  ankles. 
People  looked  at  them  kindly  as  they  passed, 
for  the  shadow  of  the  war  lay  on  everyone  and 
all  hearts  went  out  to  the  men  who  were  to  up- 
hold the  flag.  Raymond  was  flattered  and  yet 
somewhat  overcome  by  the  attention  his  com- 
panion and  he  excited. 

"  Let's  get  out  of  this,  Quint,"  he  said.  "  I 
can't  walk  straight  when  people  look  at  me  like 
that.  Don't  you  feel  kind  of  givey-givey  at 
the  knees  with  all  those  pretty  girls  loving  us  in 
advance?" 

11  Oh,  that's  what  I  like !  "  said  Quintan.     "  I 
never  got  a  glance  when  I  used  to  sport  a  silk 
hat.    Besides,  here  we  are  at  the  old  stand !  " 
[206] 


THE    AWAKENING 

Raymond  regarded  him  with  blank  surprise 
as  they  turned  aside  and  up  the  steps  of  one  of 
the  houses. 

"Land's  sake!"  he  exclaimed;  "you  don't 
mean  to  say  you  live  in  a  place  like  this? 
Here?"  he  added,  with  an  intonation  that 
caused  Howard  to  burst  out  laughing. 

The  young  fellow  pushed  by  the  footman 
that  admitted  them  and  ran  up  the  stairs  three 
steps  at  a  time.  Raymond  followed  more 
slowly,  dazed  by  the  splendour  he  saw  about  him, 
and  feeling  horribly  embarrassed  and  deserted. 
He  halted  on  the  stairs  as  he  saw  Quintan 
throw  his  arms  about  a  tall,  stately,  magnificently 
dressed  woman  and  kiss  her  boisterously;  and 
he  was  in  two  minds  whether  or  not  to  slink 
down  again  and  disappear,  when  his  companion 
called  out  to  him  to  hurry  up. 

"  Mother,  this  is  Mr.  Raymond,"  he  said. 
"  He's  the  best  friend  I  have  on  the  Dixie,  and 
you're  to  be  awfully  good  to  him !  " 
[207] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

Mrs.  Quintan  graciously  gave  him  her  hand 
and  said  something  about  his  kindness  to  her 
boy.  Raymond  was  too  stricken  to  speak  and 
was  thankful  for  the  semi-darkness  that  hid  his 
face.  Mrs.  Quintan  continued  softly,  in  the 
same  sweet  and  overpowering  manner,  to  purr 
her  gratitude  and  try  to  put  him  at  his  ease. 
Raymond  would  have  been  a  happy  man  could 
he  have  sunk  though  the  parquetry  floor.  He 
trembled  as  he  was  led  into  the  drawing-room, 
where  another  gracious  and  overpowering 
creature  rose  to  receive  them. 

"  My  aunt,  Miss  Christine  Latimer,"  said 
Howard. 

She  was  younger  than  Mrs.  Quintan;  a  tall, 
fair  woman  of  middle  age,  with  a  fine  figure, 
hair  streaked  with  grey,  and  the  remains  of  what 
had  once  been  extreme  beauty.  Her  voice  was 
the  sweetest  Raymond  had  ever  listened  to,  and 
his  shyness  and  agitation  wore  off  as  she  began 
to  speak  to  him.  He  was  left  a  long  while 

[208] 


THE    AWAKENING 

alone  with  her,  for  Howard  and  his  mother 
withdrew,  excusing  themselves  on  the  score  of 
private  matters.  Christine  Latimer  was  touched 
by  the  forlorn  quartermaster,  who,  in  his  ner- 
vousness, gripped  his  chair  with  clenched  hands 
and  started  when  he  was  asked  a  question. 
She  soon  got  him  past  this  stage  of  their  ac- 
quaintance, and,  leading  him  on  by  gentle  grada- 
tions to  talk  about  himself,  even  learned  his 
whole  story,  and  that  in  so  unobtrusive  a  fashion 
that  he  was  hardly  aware  of  his  having  told  it  to 
her. 

"  I  am  speaking  to  you  as  though  I  had 
known  you  all  my  life,"  he  said  in  an  artless 
compliment.  "  I  hope  it  is  not  very  forward  of 
me.  It  is  your  fault  for  being  so  kind  and 
good." 

He  was  ecstatic  when  he  left  the  house  with 
Quintan. 

"  I  didn't  know  there  were  such  women  in 
the  world,"  he  said.  "  So  noble,  so  winning 
[209] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

and  high-bred.  It  makes  you  understand  his- 
tory to  meet  people  like  that.  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots,  Marie  Antoinette  and  all  those,  you 
know — they  must  have  been  like  that.  I — I 
could  understand  a  man  dying  for  Miss  Lati- 
mer!" 

"  Oh,  she's  all  right,  my  aunt !  "  said  Quintan. 
"  She  was  a  tremendous  beauty  once,  and  even 
now  she's  what  I'd  call  a  devilish  handsome 
woman.  And  the  grand  manner,  it  isn't  every- 
body that  likes  it,  but  I  do.  It's  a  little 
old-fashioned  nowadays,  but,  by  Jove,  it  still 
tells." 

"  I  wonder  that  such  a  splendid  woman 
should  have  remained  unmarried,"  said  Ray- 
mond. He  stuck  an  instant  on  the  word  un- 
married. It  seemed  almost  common  to  apply 
to  such  a  princess. 

"  She  had  an  early  love  affair  that  turned  out 
badly,"  said  Quintan.  "  I  don't  know  what 
went  wrong,  but  anyway  it  didn't  work.  Then, 
[210] 


THE    AWAKENING 

when  my  father  died,  she  came  to  live  with  us 
and  help  bring  us  up — you  see  there  are  two 
more  of  us  in  the  family — and  I  am  told  she 
refused  some  good  matches  just  on  account  of  us 
kids.  It  makes  me  feel  guilty  sometimes  to 
think  of  it." 

"  Why  guilty?  "  asked  Raymond. 

"  Because  none  of  us  were  worth  it,  old 
chap,"  said  Quintan. 

"  I'm  sure  she  never  thought  so,"  observed 
Raymond. 

"  My  aunt's  rather  an  unusual  woman,"  said 
Quintan.  "  She  has  voluntarily  played  second 
fiddle  all  her  life;  and,  between  you  and  me,  you 
know,  my  mother's  a  bit  of  a  tyrant,  and  not  al- 
ways easy  to  get  along  with — so  it  wasn't  so  sim- 
ple a  game  as  it  looks." 

Raymond  was  shocked  at  this  way  of  putting 
the  matter. 

"  You  mean  she  sacrificed  the  best  years  of  her 
life  for  you,"  he  said  stiffly. 

[211] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

"Women  are  like  that — good  women,"  said 
Quintan.  "  Catch  a  man  being  such  a  fool — 
looking  at  it  generally,  you  know — me  apart. 
She  had  a  tidy  little  fortune  from  her  father,  and 
might  have  had  a  yard  of  her  own  to  play  in,  but 
our  little  baby  hands  held  her  tight." 

Raymond  regarded  his  companion's  hands. 
They  were  large  and  red,  and  rough  with  the 
hard  work  on  board  the  Dixie;  regarded  them 
respectfully,  almost  with  awe,  for  had  they  not 
restrained  that  glorious  being  in  the  full  tide  of 
her  youth  and  beauty ! 

"  Now  it's  too  late,"  said  Quintan. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  too  late?  "  asked  the 
quartermaster. 

"  Well,  she's  passed  forty,"  said  Quintan. 
"  The  babies  have  grown  up,  and  the  selfish 
beasts  are  striking  out  for  themselves.  Her  oc- 
cupation's gone,  and  she's  left  plante  Id.  Worse 
than  that,  my  mother,  who  never  bothered  two 
cents  about  us  then,  now  loves  us  to  distraction. 

[212] 


THE    AWAKENING 

And,  when  all's  said,  you  know,  it's  natural  to 
like  your  mother  best !  " 

"  Too  bad !  "  ejaculated  Raymond. 

"  I  call  it  deuced  hard  luck,"  said  Quintan. 
"  My  mother  really  neglected  us  shamefully, 
and  it  was  Aunt  Christine  who  brought  us  up 
and  blew  our  noses  and  rubbed  us  with  goose- 
grease  when  we  had  croup,  and  all  that  kind  of 
thing.  Then,  when  we  grew  up,  my  mother  sud- 
denly discovered  her  long-lost  children  and  be- 
gan to  think  a  heap  of  us — after  having  scamped 
the  whole  business  for  fifteen  years — and  my 
aunt,  who  was  the  real  nigger  in  the  hedge,  got 
kind  of  let  out,  you  see." 

Raymond  did  not  see,  and  he  was  indignant, 
besides,  at  the  coarseness  of  his  companion's  ex- 
pressions. So  he  walked  along  and  said  nothing. 

"And,  as  I  said  before,  it's  now  too  late," 
said  Quintan. 

"  Too  late  for  what?  "  demanded  Raymond, 
who  was  deeply  interested. 
[213] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

"  For  her  to  take  up  with  anybody  else,"  said 
Quintan.  "  To  marry,  you  know.  She  sacri- 
ficed all  her  opportunities  for  us ;  and  now,  in  the 
inevitable  course  of  things,  we  are  kind  of  aban- 
doning her  when  she  is  old  and  faded  and 
lonely." 

"  I  consider  your  aunt  one  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful women  in  the  world,"  protested  Raymond. 

"  But  you  can't  put  back  the  clock,  old  fel- 
low," said  Quintan.  "  What  has  the  world  to 
offer  to  an  old  maid  of  forty-two?  There  she 
is  in  the  empty  nest,  and  not  her  own  nest  at 
that,  with  all  her  little  nestlings  flying  over  the 
hills  and  far  away,  and  the  genuine  mother-bird 
varying  the  monotony  by  occasionally  pecking 
her  eyes  out." 

Raymond  did  not  know  what  to  answer.  He 
could  not  be  so  rude  as  to  make  any  reflection  on 
Mrs.  Quintan,  though  he  was  stirred  with  resent- 
ment against  her.  This  noble,  angelic,  saintly 
woman,  who  in  every  gesture  reminded  him  of 


THE    AWAKENING 

dead  queens  and  historic  personages !  It  went 
to  his  heart  to  think  of  her,  bereft  and  lonely,  in 
that  splendid  house  he  had  so  lately  quitted. 
He  recognised,  in  the  unmistakable  accord  be- 
tween him  and  her,  the  fellowship  of  a  pair  who, 
in  different  ways  and  in  different  stations,  had 
yet  fought  and  suffered  and  endured  for  what 
they  judged  their  duty.  Forty-two  years  old! 
Singular  coincidence,  in  itself  almost  a  bond  be- 
tween them,  that  he,  too,  was  of  an  identical 
age.  Forty-two !  Why,  it  was  called  the  prime 
of  life.  He  inhaled  a  deep  breath  of  air;  it  was 
the  prime  of  life;  until  then  no  one  had  really 
begun  to  live ! 

;<  Why  don't  you  say  something?"  said 
Quintan. 

"  I  was  just  thinking  how  mistaken  you  were," 
returned  Raymond.  "  There  must  be  hundreds 
of  men  who  would  be  proud  to  win  her  slightest 
regard;  who,  instead  of  considering  her  faded 
or  old,  would  choose  her  out  of  a  thousand  of 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

younger  women  and  would  be  happy  for  ever  if 

she  would  take "  He  was  going  to  say 

them,  but  that  sounded  improper,  and  he 
changed  it,  at  the  cost  of  grammar,  to  "  him." 

Quintan  laughed  at  his  companion's  vehe- 
mence, and  the  subject  passed  and  gave  way  to 
another  about  shrapnel.  But  he  did  not  fail, 
later  on,  to  carry  a  humourous  report  of  the 
conversation  to  his  aunt. 

;<  What  have  you  been  doing  to  my  old  quar- 
termaster?" he  said.  "Hasn't  the  poor  fel- 
low enough  troubles  as  it  is,  without  falling  in 
love  with  you !  He  can't  talk  of  anything  else, 
and  blushes  like  a  girl  when  he  mentions  your 
name.  He  told  me  yesterday  he  was  willing  to 
die  for  a  woman  like  you." 

"  I  think  he's  a  dear,  nice  fellow,"  said  Miss 
Latimer,  "  and  if  he  wants  to  love  me  he  can. 
It  will  keep  him  out  of  mischief!  " 

Raymond  saw  a  great  deal  of  Miss  Latimer 
in  the  month  before  they  sailed  south.  Quintan 


THE    AWAKENING 

took  him  constantly  to  the  house,  where,  in  his 
capacity  of  humble  and  devoted  comrade,  the 
tall  quartermaster  was  always  welcome  and 
made  much  of.  Mrs.  Quintan  was  alive  to  the 
value  of  this  attached  follower,  who  might  be 
trusted  to  guard  her  son  in  the  perils  that  lay 
before  him.  She  treated  him  as  a  sort  of  com- 
bination of  valet,  nurse,  and  poor  relation, 
asking  him  all  sorts  of  intimate  questions  about 
Howard's  socks  and  underclothing,  and  holding 
him  altogether  responsible  for  the  boy's  wel- 
fare. Her  tone  was  one  of  anxious  patronage, 
touching  at  times  on  a  deeper  emotion  when  she 
often  broke  down  and  cried.  The  quartermas- 
ter was  greatly  moved  by  her  trust  in  him.  The 
tears  would  come  to  his  own  eyes,  and  he  would 

try  in  his  clumsy  way  to  comfort  her,  promising 

i 

that,  so  far  as  it  lay  with  him,  Howard  should 
return  safe  and  sound.  In  his  self-abnegation 
it  never  occurred  to  him  that  his  own  life  was 
as  valuable  as  Howard  Quintan's.  He  acqui- 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 
esced  in  the  understanding  that  it  was  his  busi- 
ness   to    get    Howard    through    the    war    un- 
scratched,  at  whatever  risk  or  jeopardy  to  him- 
self. 

Those  were  wonderful  days  for  him.  To  be 
an  intimate  of  that  splendid  household,  to  drive 
behind  spanking  bays  with  Miss  Latimer  by  his 
side,  to  take  tea  at  the  Waldorf  with  her  and 
other  semi-divine  beings — what  a  dazzling  ex- 
perience for  the  ex-clerk,  whose  lines  so  recently 
had  lain  in  such  different  places.  Innately  a 
gentleman,  he  bore  himself  with  dignity  in  this 
new  position,  with  a  fine  simplicity  and  self- 
effacement  that  was  not  lost  on  some  of  his 
friends.  His  respect  for  them  all  was  un- 
bounded. For  the  mother,  so  majestic,  so  awe- 
inspiring;  for  Howard,  that  handsome  boy 
whose  exuberant  Americanism  was  untouched  by 
any  feeling  of  caste;  for  Melton  and  Hubert 
Henry,  his  brothers,  those  lordly  striplings  of  a 
lordly  race ;  for  Miss  Latimer,  who  in  his  heart 


THE    AWAKENING 

of  hearts  he  dared  not  call  Christine,  and  who  to 
him  was  the  embodiment  of  everything  adorable 
in  women.  Yes,  he  loved  her;  confessed  to  him- 
self that  he  loved  her;  humbly  and  without  hope, 
with  no  anticipation  of  anything  more  between 
them,  overcome  indeed  that  his  presumption 
should  go  thus  far. 

He  did  not  attempt  to  hide  his  feelings  for 
her,  and  though  too  shy  for  any  expression  of  it, 
and  withheld  besides  by  the  utter  impossibility 
of  such  a  suit,  he  betrayed  himself  to  her  in  a 
thousand  artless  ways.  He  asked  for  no  higher 
happiness  than  to  sit  by  her  side,  looking  into  her 
face  and  listening  to  her  mellow  voice.  He  was 
thrice  happy  were  he  privileged  to  touch  her 
hand  in  passing  a  teacup.  Her  gentleness  and 
courtesy,  her  evident  consideration,  the  little 
peeps  she  gave  him  into  a  nature  gracious  and 
refined  beyond  anything  he  had  ever  known,  all 
transported  him  with  unreasoning  delight.  She, 
on  her  part,  so  accustomed  to  play  a  minor  role 
[219] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

herself  in  her  sister's  househould,  was  yet  too 
much  a  woman  not  to  like  an  admirer  of  her 
own.  She  took  more  pains  with  her  dress, 
looked  at  herself  more  often  in  the  glass  than 
she  had  done  in  years.  It  was  laughable;  it  was 
absurd;  and  she  joined  as  readily  as  anyone  in 
the  mirth  that  Raymond's  devotion  excited  in 
the  family,  but,  deep  down  within  her,  she  was 
pleased.  At  the  least  it  showed  she  had  not 
grown  too  old  to  make  men  love  her;  it  was  the 
vindication  of  the  mounting  years;  the  time, 
then,  had  not  yet  come  when  she  had  ceased  al- 
together to  count.  She  had  lost  her  nephews, 
who  were  growing  to  be  men;  the  love  she  put 
by  so  readily  when  it  was  in  her  reach  seemed 
now  more  precious  as  she  beheld  her  faded  and 
diminished  beauty,  the  crow's-feet  about  her 
eyes,  her  hair  turning  from  brown  to  grey. 
A  smothered  voice  within  her  said :  <l<  Why 
not?" 

She  analysed  Raymond  narrowly  in  the  long 
[  220  ] 


THE    AWAKENING 

tete-h-t&tes  they  had  together.  She  drew  him 
out,  encouraging  and  pressing  him  to  tell  her 
everything  about  himself.  She  was  always  ap- 
prehending a  jarring  note,  the  inevitable  sign  of 
the  man's  coarser  clay,  of  his  commoner  up- 
bringing, the  clash  of  his  caste  on  hers.  But  she 
was  struck  instead  by  his  inherent  refinement, 
by  his  unformulated  instincts  of  well-doing  and 
honour.  He  was  hazy  about  the  use  of  oyster- 
forks,  had  never  seen  a  finger-bowl,  committed  to 
her  eyes  a  dozen  little  solecisms  which  he  has- 
tened to  correct  by  frankly  asking  her  assist- 
ance ;  but  in  the  true  essentials  she  never  had  to 
feel  any  shame  for  him.  Clumsy,  grotesquely 
ignorant  of  the  social  amenities,  he  was  yet  a 
gentleman. 

The  night  before  they  were  to  sail,  he  came  to 
say  good-bye.  The  war  had  at  last  begun  in 
earnest;  men  were  falling,  and  the  Spaniards 
were  expected  to  make  a  desperate  and  bloody 
resistance.  It  was  a  sobering  moment  for  every- 

[221  ] 


LOVE  THE  FIDDLER 
one,  and,  in  all  voices,  however  hard  they  tried 
to  make  them  brave  and  gay,  there  ran  an  under- 
current of  solemnity.  Howard  and  Raymond 
were  to  be  actors  in  that  terrible  drama  not  yet 
played;  stripped  and  powder-blackened  at  their 
guns,  they  were  perhaps  doomed  to  go  down 
with  their  ship  and  find  their  graves  in  the 
Caribbean.  Before  them  lay  untold  possi- 
bilities of  wounds  and  mutilation,  of  disease, 
suffering,  and  horror.  What  woman  that  knew 
them  could  look  on  unmoved  at  the  sight  of  these 
men,  so  grave  and  earnest,  so  quietly  resolute,  so 
deprecatory  of  anything  like  braggadocio  or 
over-confidence?  It  filled  Christine  Latimer 
with  a  fierce  pride  in  herself  and  them;  in  a 
race  that  could  breed  men  so  gentle  and  so  brave ; 
in  a  country  that  was  founded  so  surely  on  the 
devoted  hearts  of  its  citizens. 

She  was  crying  as  Raymond  came  to  her  later 
on  the  same  evening,  and  found  her  sitting  in 
the  far  end  of  the  drawing-room  with  the  lights 
[  222  ] 


THE    AWAKENING 

turned  low.  They  were  alone  together,  for  the 
quartermaster  had  left  Howard  with  his  mother 
and  his  brothers  gathered  in  a  farewell  group 
about  the  library  fire.  Miss  Latimer  took  both 
of  Raymond's  hands,  and,  with  no  attempt  to 
disguise  her  sorrow,  drew  him  close  beside  her  on 
the  divan.  She  was  overflowing  with  pity  for 
this  poor  fellow,  whose  life  had  been  so  hard,  in 
which  until  now  there  had  neither  been  love  nor 
friends,  whose  only  human  tie  was  to  his  mother 
and  to  her.  Had  he  known  it,  he  might  have  put 
his  arms  about  her  and  kissed  her  tear-swollen 
eyes  and  drawn  her  head  against  his  breast.  She 
was  filled  with  a  pent-up  tenderness  for  him;  a 
word,  and  she  would  have  discovered  what  was 
until  then  inarticulate  in  her  bosom.  But  the 
tall  quartermaster  was  withheld  from  such  in- 
credible presumption.  Her  beautiful  gown 
against  his  common  serge  typified,  as  it  were,  the 
gulf  between  them.  Her  distress,  her  agitation, 
were  in  his  mind  due  to  her  concern  for  Howard 
[223] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

Quintan ;  and  he  told  her  again  and  again,  with 
manly  sincerity,  that  he  would  take  good  care  of 
her  boy. 

She  knew  he  loved  her.  It  had  been  plain  to 
her  for  weeks  past.  She  knew  every  thought 
in  his  head  as  he  sat  there  beside  her,  thrilled 
with  the  touch  of  her  hands,  and  in  the  throes 
of  a  respectful  rapture.  Again  and  again  the 
avowal  was  on  his  lips ;  he  longed  to  tell  her  how 
dear  she  was  to  him;  it  would  be  hard  to  die 
with  that  unsaid,  were  he  to  be  amongst  those 
who  never  returned.  It  never  occurred  to  him 
that  she  might  return  his  love.  A  woman  like 
her !  A  queen ! 

She  could  easily  have  helped  him  out.  More 
than  once  she  was  on  the  point  of  doing  so. 
But  the  woman  in  her  rebelled  at  the  thought  of 
taking  what  was  the  man's  place.  She  had  some- 
thing of  the  exaggerated  delicacy  of  an  old  maid. 
It  was  for  him  to  ask,  for  her  to  answer;  and 
the  precious  moments  slipped  away.  At  last, 
[224] 


THE    AWAKENING 

greatly  daring,  he  managed  to  blurt  out  the  fact 
that  he  wanted  to  ask  a  favour. 

"A  favour?"  she  said. 

"  Won't  you  give  me  something,"  he  said 
timidly,  "  some  little  thing  to  take  with  me  to 
remember  you  by?  " 

She  replied  she  would  with  pleasure.  She 
wanted  him  to  remember  her.  What  was  it 
that  he  would  like  ? 

"  There  is  nothing  I  could  refuse  you,"  she 
said,  smiling. 

Raymond  was  overcome  with  embarrassment. 
She  saw  him  looking  at  her  hair;  her  hair  which 
was  her  greatest  beauty,  and  which  when  un- 
done was  luxuriant  enough  to  reach  below  her 
waist.  He  had  often  expressed  his  admiration 
for  it. 

"  What  would  you  like?  "  she  asked  again. 

"Oh,  anything,"  he  faltered.  "  A— a 
book!" 

She  could  not  restrain  her  laughter.  A  book ! 
[225] 


I,  O  V  E     THE     FIDDLER 

She  laughed  and  laughed.  She  seemed  carried 
away  by  an  extraordinary  merriment.  Ray- 
mond thought  he  had  never  heard  a  woman 
laugh  like  that  before.  It  made  him  feel  very 
badly.  He  wondered  what  it  was  that  had 
made  his  request  so  ridiculous.  He  thanked  his 
stars  that  he  had  held  his  tongue  about  the  other 
thing.  Ah,  what  a  fool  he  had  been!  He 
could  not  have  borne  it,  had  the  other  been 
received  with  the  same  derision. 

"  I  shall  give  you  my  prayer-book,"  she  said 
at  last,  wiping  her  eyes  and  looking  less  amused 
than  he  had  expected.  "  I've  had  it  many 
years  and  value  it  dearly.  It  is  prettily  bound 
in  Russia,  and  if  you  carry  it  on  the  proper  place 
romance  will  see  that  it  stops  a  bullet — though 
a  Bible,  I  believe,  is  the  more  correct." 

Somehow  her  tone  sounded  less  cordial.  She 
had  withdrawn  her  hands,  and  her  humour,  at 
such  a  moment,  jarred  on  him.  In  spite  of  his 
good  resolutions  he  had  managed  to  put  his  foot 


THE     AWAKENING 

into  it  after  all.  Perhaps  she  had  begun  to 
suspect  his  secret  and  was  -displeased.  He  de- 
parted feeling  utterly  wretched  and  out  of  heart, 
and  got  very  scant  comfort  from  his  book,  for 
it  only  reminded  him  of  how  seriously  he  had 
compromised  himself.  He  was  in  two  minds 
whether  or  not  to  send  it  back,  but  decided  not 
to  do  so  in  fear  lest  he  might  give  fresh  offence. 
The  next  day  at  dawn  the  Dixie  sailed  for  the 
scene  of  war. 

Ill 

Then  followed  the  historic  days  of  the 
blockade ;  the  first  landing  on  Cuba ;  the  suspense 
and  triumph  attending  Cervera's  capture;  El 
Caney;  San  Juan  Hill;  Santiago;  and  the  end  of 
the  war.  Howard  Quintan  fell  ill  with  fever 
and  was  early  invalided  home;  but  Raymond 
stayed  to  the  finish,  an  obscure  spectator,  often 
an  obscure  actor,  in  that  world-drama  of  fleets 
and  armies.  Tried  in  the  fire,  his  character 
[227] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

underwent  some  noted  changes.  He  developed 
unexpected  aptitudes,  became  a  marksman  of  big 
guns,  showed  resource  and  skill  in  boat-work, 
earned  the  repeated  commendations  of  his 
superiors.  He  put  his  resolutions  to  the  test, 
and  emerged,  surprised,  thankful,  and  satisfied, 
to  find  that  he  was  a  brave  man.  He  rose  in 
his  own  esteem ;  it  was  borne  in  on  him  that  he 
had  qualities  that  others  often  lacked;  it  was 
inspiriting  to  win  a  reputation  for  daring,  fear- 
lessness, and  responsibility. 

He  wrote  when  he  could  to  his  mother  and 
Miss  Latimer,  and  at  rare  intervals  was  some- 
times fortunate  enough  to  hear  in  turn  from 
them.  His  mother  was  ill;  the  strain  of  his 
absence  and  danger  was  telling  on  her  enfeebled 
constitution;  she  said  she  could  not  have  got 
along  at  all  had  it  not  been  for  Miss  Larimer's 
great  kindness.  It  seemed  that  the  old  maid 
was  her  constant  visitor,  bringing  her  flowers, 
taking  her  drives,  comforting  her  in  the  dark 
[228] 


THE     AWAKE  NING 

hours  when  her  courage  was  nigh  spent.  "  A 
good  and  noble  woman,"  wrote  the  old  lady, 
"  and  very  much  in  love  with  my  boy." 

That  line  rang  in  Raymond's  head  long  after- 
wards. He  read  it  again  and  again,  bewildered, 
tempted  and  yet  afraid  to  believe  it  true,  moved 
to  the  depths  of  his  nature,  at  once  happy  and 
unhappy  in  the  gamut  of  his  doubts.  It  could 
not  be  possible.  No,  it  could  not  be  possible. 
Standing  at  the  breech  of  his  gun,  his  eyes  on  a 
Spanish  gunboat  they  had  driven  under  the 
shelter  of  a  fort,  he  found  himself  repeating: 
"  And  very  much  in  love  with  my  boy.  And 
very  much  in  love  with  my  boy."  And  then, 
suddenly  becoming  intent  again  on  the  matter  in 
hand,  he  slammed  the  breech-mechanism  shut 
and  gave  the  enemy  a  six-inch  shell. 

Then  there  came  the  news  of  his  mother's 

death.     As  much  a  victim  of  the  war  as  any 

stricken  soldier  or  sailor  at  the  front,  she  was 

numbered  on  the  roll  of  the  fallen.     The  war 

[229] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

had  killed  her  as  certainly,  as  surely,  as  any 
Mauser  bullet  sped  from  a  tropic  thicket.  Ray- 
mond had  only  the  consolation  of  knowing  that 
Miss  Latimer  had  been  with  her  at  the  last  and 
that  she  had  followed  his  mother  to  the  grave. 
Her  letter,  tender  and  pitiful,  filled  him  with  an 
inexpressible  emotion.  His  little  world  now 
held  but  her. 

This  was  the  last  letter  he  was  destined  to 
receive  from  her.  The  others,  if  there  were 
others,  all  went  astray  in  the  chaotic  confusion 
attendant  on  active  service.  The  poor  quarter- 
master, when  the  ship  was  so  lucky  as  to  take  a 
mail  aboard,  grew  accustomed  to  be  told  that 
there  was  nothing  for  him.  He  lost  heart  and 
stopped  writing  himself.  What  was  the  use, 
he  asked  himself?  Had  she  not  abandoned 
him?  The  critical  days  of  the  war  were  over; 
peace  was  assured;  the  victory  won,  the  country 
was  already  growing  forgetful  of  the  victors. 
Such  were  his  moody  reflections  as  he  paced  the 
[230] 


THE    AWAKENING 

deck,  hungry  for  the  word  that  never  came. 
Yes,  he  was  forgotten.  There  could  be  no 
other  explanation  of  that  long  silence.  He  was 
forgotten ! 

He  returned  in  due  course  to  New  York  and 
was  paid  off  and  mustered  out  of  the  service. 
It  was  dusk  when  he  boarded  an  uptown  car  and 
stood  holding  to  a  strap,  jostled  and  pushed 
about  by  the  unheeding  crowd.  Already  jealous 
of  his  uniform,  he  felt  a  little  bitterness  to  see  it 
regarded  with  such  scant  respect.  He  looked 
out  of  the  windows  at  the  lighted  streets  and 
wondered  whether  any  of  those  hurrying  thou- 
sands cared  a  jot  for  the  men  that  had  fought 
and  died  for  them.  The  air,  so  sharp  and  chill 
after  the  tropics,  served  still  further  to  dispirit 
him  and  add  the  concluding  note  of  depression 
to  his  home-coming.  He  got  off  the  car  and 
walked  down  to  Fifth  Avenue,  holding  his 
breath  as  he  drew  near  the  Quintans'  house.  He 
rang  the  bell:  waited  and  rang  again.  Then 

[230 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

at  last  the  door  was  unlocked  and  opened  by  an 
old  woman. 

"  Is  Miss — Mrs.  Quintan  at  home?"  he 
asked. 

"  Gone  to  Europe,"  said  the  old  woman. 

"  But  Miss  Latimer?  "  he  persisted. 

"  Gone  to  Europe,"  said  the  old  woman. 

"Mr.  Howard  Quintan?" 

"  Gone  to  Europe !  " 

He  walked  slowly  down  the  steps,  not  even 
waiting  to  ask  for  their  address  abroad  nor 
when  they  might  be  expected  to  return.  They 
had  faded  into  the  immeasurable  distance. 
What  more  was  there  to  be  said  or  hoped,  and 
his  dejected  heart  gave  back  the  answer:  noth- 
ing. He  slept  that  night  in  a  cheap  hotel. 
The  next  day  he  bought  a  suit  of  civilian  clothes 
and  sought  the  office  of  the  auditor's  depart- 
ment. Here  he  received  something  more  like 
a  welcome.  Many  of  the  clerks,  with  whom  he 
had  scarcely  been  on  nodding  terms,  now  came 
[232] 


THE     AWAKE  NING 

up  and  shook  him  warmly  by  the  hand.  The 
superintendent  sent  for  him  and  told  him  that 
his  place  had  been  held  open,  hinting,  in  the 
exuberance  of  the  moment,  at  a  slight  increase  of 
salary.  The  assistant  superintendent  made 
much  of  him  and  invited  him  out  to  lunch. 
The  old  darkey  door-keeper  greeted  him  like  a 
long-lost  parent.  Raymond  went  back  to  his 
desk,  and  resumed  with  a  sort  of  melancholy 
satisfaction  the  interrupted  routine  of  twenty 
years.  In  a  week  he  could  hardly  believe  he 
had  ever  quitted  his  desk.  He  would  shut  his 
eyes  and  wonder  whether  the  war  had  not  been 
all  a  dream.  He  looked  at  his  hands  and  asked 
himself  whether  they  indeed  had  pulled  the 
lanyards  of  cannon,  lifted  loaded  projectiles, 
had  held  the  spokes  of  the  leaping  wheel.  His 
eyes,  now  intent  on  figures,  had  they  in  truth 
ever  searched  the  manned  decks  of  the  enemy 
or  trained  the  sights  that  had  blown  Spanish 
blockhouses  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven? 

[233  ] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

Had  it  been  he  or  his  ghost  who  had  stood 
behind  the  Nordenfeldt  shields  with  the  bullets 
pattering  against  the  steel  and  stinging  the  air 
overhead?  He  or  his  ghost,  barefoot  in  the 
sand  that  sopped  the  blood  of  fallen  comrades, 
the  ship  shaking  with  the  detonation  of  her  guns, 
the  hoarse  cheering  of  her  crew  re-echoing  in 
his  half-deafened  ears?  A  dream,  yes;  tragic 
and  wonderful  in  the  retrospect,  filled  with  wild, 
bright  pictures ;  incredible,  yet  true  I 

He  was  restless  and  lonely.  He  dreaded  his 
evenings,  which  he  knew  not  how  to  spend; 
dreaded  the  recurring  Sunday,  interminable  in 
duration,  whose  leaden  hours  seemed  never  to 
reach  their  end.  His  only  solace  was  in  his 
work,  which  took  him  out  of  himself  and  pre- 
vented him  from  thinking.  He  made  a  weekly 
pilgrimage  past  the  Quintans'  house.  The 
blinds  were  always  drawn.  It  was  as  dead  as 
one  of  those  Cuban  mills,  standing  in  the  desola- 
tion of  burned  fields.  Once,  greatly  daring, 

[234] 


THE    AWAKENING 

and  impelled  by  a  sudden  impulse,  he  went  to  the 
door  and  requested  the  address  of  his  vanished 
friends : 

"  Grand  Hotel,  Vevey,  Switzerland." 
He  repeated  the  words  to  himself  as  he  went 
back  to  his  boarding-house,  repeated  them  again 
and  again  like  a  child  going  on  an  errand, 
"  Grand  Hotel,  Vevey,  Switzerland,"  in  a  sort 
of  panic  lest  he  might  forget  them.  He  tossed 
that  night  in  his  bed  in  a  torment  of  indecision. 
Ought  he  to  write?  Ought  he  to  take  the  risk 
of  a  reply,  courteous  and  cold,  that  he  felt  him- 
self without  the  courage  to  endure  ?  Or  was  it 
not  better  to  put  an  end  to  it  altogether  and 
accept  like  a  man  the  inevitable  "  no  "  of  her 
decision. 

He  rose  at  dawn,  and,  lighting  the  gas,  went 
back  to  bed  with  what  paper  he  could  lay  his 
hands  on.  He  had  no  pen,  no  ink,  only  the 
stub  of  a  pencil  he  carried  in  his  pocket.  How 
it  flew  over  the  ragged  sheets  under  the  fierce 

[235] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

spell  of  his  determination !  All  the  misery  and 
longing  of  months  went  out  in  that  letter.  In- 
articulate no  longer,  he  found  the  expression  of  a 
passionate  and  despairing  eloquence.  He  could 
not  live  without  her;  he  loved  her;  he  had  always 
loved  her;  before  he  had  been  daunted  by  the 
inequality  between  them,  but  now  he  must  speak 
or  die.  At  the  end  he  asked  her,  in  set  old- 
fashioned  terms,  whether  or  not  she  would 
marry  him. 

He  mailed  it  as  it  was,  in  odd  sheets  and  under 
the  cover  of  an  official  envelope  of  the  railroad 
company.  He  dropped  it  into  the  box  and 
walked  away,  wondering  whether  he  wasn't  the 
biggest  fool  on  earth  and  the  most  audacious, 
and  yet  stirred  and  trembling  with  a  strange 
satisfaction.  After  all  he  was  a  man;  he  had 
lived  as  a  man  should,  honourably  and  straight- 
forwardly; he  had  the  right  to  ask  such  a  ques- 
tion of  any  woman  and  the  right  to  an  honest 
and  considerate  answer.  Be  it  yes  or  no,  he 

[236] 


THE    AWAKENING 

could  reproach  himself  no  longer  with  perhaps 
having  let  his  happiness  slip  past  him.  The 
matter  would  be  put  beyond  a  doubt  for  ever, 
and  if  it  went  against  him,  as  in  the  bottom  of 
his  heart  he  felt  assured  it  would,  he  would  try 
to  bear  it  with  what  fortitude  he  might.  She 
would  know  that  he  loved  her.  There  was 
always  that  to  comfort  him.  She  would  know 
that  he  loved  her. 

He  got  a  postal  guide  and  studied  out  the 
mails.  He  learned  the  names  of  the  various 
steamers,  the  date  of  their  sailing  and  arriving, 
the  distance  of  Vevey  from  the  sea.  Were  she 
to  write  on  the  same  -day  she  received  his  letter, 
he  might  hear  from  her  by  the  Touraine.  Were 
she  to  wait  a  day,  her  answer  would  be  delayed 
for  the  Normandie.  All  this,  if  the  schedule 
was  followed  to  the  letter  and  bad  weather  or 
accident  did  not  intervene.  The  shipping  page 
of  the  New  York  Herald  became  the  only  part 
of  it  he  read.  He  scanned  it  daily  with  anxiety. 
[237] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

Did  it  not  tell  him  of  his  letter  speeding  over 
seas  ?  For  him  no  news  was  good  news,  telling 
him  that  all  was  well.  He  kept  himself  in- 
formed of  the  temperature  of  Paris,  the  tem- 
perature of  Nice,  and  worried  over  the  floods  in 
Belgium.  From  the  gloomy  offices  of  the  rail- 
road he  held  all  Europe  under  the  closest 
scrutiny. 

Then  came  the  time  when  his  letter  was  cal- 
culated to  arrive.  In  his  mind's  eye  he  saw  the 
Grand  Hotel  at  Vevey,  a  Waldorf-Astoria  set 
in  snowy  mountains  with  attendant  Swiss  yodel- 
ling on  inaccessible  summits,  or  getting  marvels 
of  melody  out  of  little  hand-bells,  or  making 
cuckoo  clocks  in  top-swollen  chalets.  The  letter 
would  be  brought  to  her  on  a  silver  salver, 
exciting  perhaps  the  stately  curiosity  of  Mrs. 
Quintan  and  questions  embarrassing  to  answer. 
It  was  a  pity  he  used  that  railroad  envelope! 
Or  would  it  lie  beside  her  plate  at  breakfast, 
as  clumsy  and  unrefined  as  himself,  amid  a  heap 

[238] 


THE     AWAKENING 

of  scented  notes  from  members  of  the  nobility? 
Ah,  if  he  could  but  see  her  face  and  read  his  fate 
in  her  blue  eyes ! 

When  he  returned  home  that  night  there  was 
a  singular-looking  telegram  awaiting  him  on  the 
hall  table.  His  hands  shook  as  he  took  it  up 
for  it  suddenly  came  over  him  that  it  was  a  cable. 
It  had  never  occurred  to  him  that  she  might  do 
that;  that  there  was  anything  more  expedi- 
tious than  the  mail. 

"  Sailing  by  Touraine  arriving  sixth  Christine 
Latimer." 

He  read  and  re-read  it  until  the  type  grew 
blurred.  What  did  it  mean?  He  asked  him- 
self that  a  thousand  times.  What  did  it  mean? 
He  sought  his  room  and  locked  the  door,  strid- 
ing up  and  down  with  agitation,  the  cablegram 
clenched  in  his  hand.  He  was  beside  himself, 
triumphant  and  yet  in  a  fever  of  misgiving. 
Was  it  notperhaps  a  coincidence — not  an  answer 
to  his  own  letter,  but  one  of  those  extraordinary 
[239] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

instances  of  what  is  called  telepathy?  Her 
words  would  bear  either  interpretation.  Pos- 
sibly the  whole  family  was  returning  with  her. 
Possibly  she  had  never  seen  his  letter  at  all. 
Possibly  it  was  following  her  back  to  America, 
unopened  and  undelivered. 

"  Sailing  by  Touraine  arriving  sixth"  Was 
that  an  answer  ?  Perhaps  indeed  it  was.  Per- 
haps it  was  a  woman's  way  of  saying  "  yes  " ; 
it  might  even  be,  in  her  surpassing  kindness,  that 
she  was  coming  to  break  her  refusal  as  gently  as 
she  might,  too  considerate  of  his  feelings  to 
write  it  baldly  on  paper.  At  least,  amid  all  these 
doubts,  it  assured  him  of  one  thing,  her  regard; 
that  he  was  not  forgotten ;  that  he  had  been  mis- 
taken in  thinking  himself  ignored. 

He  spent  the  next  eight  days  in  a  cruel 
and  heart-breaking  suspense.  He  could  hardly 
eat  or  sleep.  He  grew  thin  and  started  at  a 
sound.  He  paid  a  dollar  to  have  the  Touraine's 
arrival  telegraphed  to  the  office;  another  dollar 
[240] 


THE     AWAKENING 

to  have  it  telegraphed  to  the  boarding-house ;  he 
was  fearful  that  one  or  the  other  might  miscarry, 
and  repeatedly  warned  the  landlady  of  a  pos- 
sible message  for  him  in  the  middle  of  the  night. 

"  It  means  a  great  deal  to  me,"  he  said.  "  It 
means  everything  to  me.  I  don't  know  what 
I'd  do  if  I  missed  the  Touralne!  " 

Of  course  he  did  not  miss  the  Touralne. 
He  was  on  the  wharf  hours  before  her  com- 
ing. He  exasperated  everyone  with  his  ques- 
tions. He  was  turned  out  of  all  kinds  of 
barriers;  he  earned  the  distrust  of  the  detectives; 
he  became  a  marked  man.  He  was  certainly 
there  for  no  good,  that  tall  guy  in  the  slouch  hat, 
his  lean  hands  fidgeting  for  a  surreptitious  pearl- 
necklace  or  an  innocent-looking  umbrella  full  of 
diamonds — one  who,  in  their  language,  was  a 
guy  that  would  bear  watching. 

The  steamer  came  alongside,  and  Raymond 
gazed  up  at  the  tier  upon  tier  of  faces.  At 
length,  with  a  catch  in  his  heart,  he  caught  sight 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

of  Miss  Latimer,  who  smiled  and  waved  her 
hand  to  him.  He  scanned  her  narrowly  for  an 
answer  to  his  doubts;  and  these  increased  the 
more  he  gazed  at  her.  It  seemed  a  bad  sign 
to  see  her  so  calm,  so  composed;  worse  still  to 
see  her  occasionally  in  animated  conversation 
with  some  of  her  fellow-passengers.  He 
thought  her  smiles  had  even  a  perfunctory 
friendliness,  and  he  had  to  share  them  besides 
with  others.  It  was  plain  she  had  never  re- 
ceived his  letter.  No  woman  could  bear  herself 
like  that  who  had  received  such  a  letter.  Then 
too  she  appeared  so  handsome,  so  high-bred,  so 
charming  and  noticeable  a  figure  in  the  little 
company  about  her  that  Raymond  felt  a 
peremptory  sense  of  his  own  humbleness  and  of 
the  impassable  void  between  them.  How  had 
he  ever  dared  aspire  to  this  beautiful  woman, 
and  the  thought  of  his  effrontery  took  him  by 
the  throat. 

He  stood  by  the  gangway  as  the  passengers 
[242] 


THE    AWAKENING 

came  off,  an  interminable  throng,  slow  moving, 
teetering  on  the  slats,  a  gush  of  funnelled  hu- 
manity, hampered  with  bags,  hat-boxes,  rolls  of 
rugs,  dressing-cases,  golf-sticks,  and  children. 
At  last  Miss  Latimer  was  carried  into  the  eddy, 
her  maid  behind  her  carrying  her  things,  lost  to 
view  save  by  the  bright  feather  in  her  travelling 
bonnet.  The  seconds  were  like  hours  as  Ray- 
mond waited.  He  had  a  peep  of  her,  smiling 
and  patient,  talking  over  her  shoulder  to  a  big 
Englishman  behind  her.  Then,  as  the  slow 
stream  brought  her  down,  she  stepped  lightly  on 
the  wharf,  turned  to  Raymond,  and,  before  he 
could  so  much  as  stammer  out  a  word,  flung  her 
arms  round  his  neck  and  kissed  him. 

"Did  you  really  want  me?"  she  said;  and 
then,  "  You  gave  me  but  two  hours  to  catch  the 
old  Touraine!  " 


[243] 


THE     MASCOT     OF     BATTERY     B 


THE     MASCOT    OF    BATTERY    B 

BATTERY  A  had  a  mascot  goat,  and 
Battery  C  a  Filipino  kid,  and  Battery 
D  a  parrot  that  could  swear  in  five 
languages,  but  I  guess  we  were  the  only  battery 
in  the  brigade  that  carried  an  old  lady!     Fili- 
pino, nothing !     But  white  as  yourself  and  from 
Oakland,  California,  and  I  don't  suppose  I'd  be 
here  talking  to  you  now,  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
her. 

I  had  known  Benny  a  long  time — Benny  was 
her  son,  you  know,  the  only  one  she  had — and 
when  I  enlisted  at  the  beginning  of  the  war 
Benny  wished  to  do  it,  too,  only  he  was  scared 
to  death,  not  of  the  Spaniards,  but  his  old  Ma ! 
So  he  hung  off  and  on,  while  I  drilled  at  the 
Presidio  and  rode  free  on  the  street  cars,  and  did 
the  little  hero  act,  and  ate  pie  the  whole  day 

[247] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

long.  My!  How  they  used  to  bring  us  pies 
in  them  times  and  boxes  of  see-gars — and 
flowers !  Flowers  to  burn !  Well  I  remember 
a  Wisconsin  regiment  marching  along  Market 
Street,  big  splendid  men  from  the  up-North 
woods,  every  one  of  them  with  a  Calla  lily  stuck 
in  his  gun!  Oh,  it  was  fine,  with  the  troops 
pouring  in,  and  the  whole  city  afire  to  receive 
them,  and  the  girls  almost  cutting  the  clothes  off 
your  back  for  souvenirs — and  it  made  Benny 
sick  to  see  it  all,  him  clerking  in  a  hardware 
store  and  eating  his  heart  out  to  go  with  the 
boys.  He  hung  back  as  long  as  he  could,  but  at 
last  he  couldn't  stand  it  no  longer,  and  the  day 
before  we  sailed  he  went  and  enlisted  in  my 
battery. 

He  knew  there  was  going  to  be  a  rumpus  at 
home  and  I  suppose  that  was  why  he  put  it  off 
to  the  very  end,  not  wanting  to  be  plagued  to 
death  or  cried  over.  But  when  he  got  into  his 
uniform  and  had  done  a  spell  of  goose-step  with 

[248] 


THE     MASCOT     OF     BATTERY     B 

the  first  sergeant,  he  was  so  blamed  rattled  about 
going  home  that  he  had  to  take  me  along  too. 
He  lived  away  off  somewheres  in  a  poorish  sort 
of  neighbourhood,  all  little  frame  houses  and  lit- 
tle front  yards  about  that  big,  where  you  could 
see  commuters  watering  Calla  lilies  in  their  city 
clothes.  Benny's  house  seemed  the  smallest  and 
poorest  of  the  lot,  though  it  had  Calla  lilies  too 
and  other  sorts  of  flowers,  and  a  mat  with  "  wel- 
come "  on  it,  and  some  kind  of  a  dog  that  licked 
our  hands  as  we  walked  up  the  front  steps  and 
answered  to  the  name  of  Book. 

Benny  pushed  open  the  door  and  went  in,  me 
at  his  heels,  and  both  of  us  nervous  as  cats.  His 
mother  was  sitting  in  a  rocker,  reading  the  even- 
ing paper  with  gold  spectacles,  and  I  never  saw 
such  a  straight-backed  old  lady  in  my  life,  nor 
any  so  tall  and  thin  and  commanding.  She 
looked  up  at  us,  kind  of  startled  to  see  two 
soldiers  walking  into  her  kitchen,  and  Benny 
smiled  a  silly  smile  and  said: 
[249] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

"  Mommer,  I'm  off  to  help  Dooey  in  the 
Fillypines!" 

I  guess  he  thought  she'd  jump  at  him  or  some- 
thing, for  he  had  always  been  a  mother's  boy 
and  minded  everything  she  said,  though  he  was 
twenty-eight  years  old  and  rising  -nine — but  all 
she  did  was  to  draw  in  her  breath  sharp  and 
sudden,  so  you  could  hear  the  whistle  of  it,  and 
then  two  big  tears  rolled  out  under  her  specs. 

"  Don't  feel  bad  about  it,  Mommer,"  said 
Benny  in  a  snuffly  voice. 

She  never  said  a  word,  but  got  up  from  the 
chair  and  came  over  to  where  Benny  was,  very 
white  and  trembly,  and  looking  at  his  army  coat 
like  it  was  a  shroud. 

"  Oh,  my  son,  my  son!  "  she  said,  kind  of 
choking  over  the  words. 

"  I  couldn't  stay  behind  when  all  the  boys  was 
going,"  he  said. 

I  saw  he  was  holding  back  all  he  could  to  keep 
from  crying,  and  I  didn't  blame  him  either,  as 
[250] 


THE     MASCOT     OF     BATTERY     B 

we  was  to  sail  the  next  day  and  the  old  lady  was 
his  Ma.  It's  them  good-byes  that  break  a 
soldier  all  up.  So  I  lit  out  and  played  with  the 
dog  and  made  him  jump  through  my  hands  and 
fetch  sticks  and  give  his  paw  (he  was  quite  a 
rf-markable  dog,  that  dog,  though  his  breeding 
wasn't  much),  while  I  could  hear  them  inside, 
talking  and  talking,  and  the  old  lady's  voice 
running  on  about  the  danger  of  drink  and  how 
he  mustn't  sleep  in  wet  clothes  or  give  back-talk 
to  his  officers — it  was  wonderful  the  horse-sense 
that  old  lady  had — and  how  he  must  respeck  the 
uniform  he  wore  and  be  cheerful  and  willing  and 
brave,  like  his  sainted  father  who  was  dead — all 
that  mothers  say  and  sometimes  what  soldiers 
do — and  through  it  all  there  was  a  pleasant  rattle 
of  dishes  and  the  sound  of  the  fire  being  poked 
up,  and  Benny  asking  where's  the  table-cloth,  and 
was  there  another  pie  ?  By  and  by  I  was  called 
in,  and  there,  sure  enough,  the  table  was  spread, 
and  we  were  both  made  to  sit  down  while  the  old 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

lady  skirmished  around  and  wiped  her  eyes 
when  we  weren't  looking. 

We  had  beefsteak,  warmed-over  pigs'  feet, 
coffee,  potato  cakes,  fresh  lettuce,  Graham 
gems,  and  two  kinds  of  pie,  and  the  next  day  we 
sailed  for  Manila. 

Them  early  days  in  the  Fillypines  was  the 
toughest  proposition  I  was  ever  up  against. 
Things  hadn't  settled  down  as  they  did  after- 
ward, nobody  knowing  where  he  was  at,  and  all 
of  us  shoved  up  to  the  front  higgeldy-piggeldy; 
and,  being  Regulars,  they  gave  us  the  heavy  end 
of  it,  having  to  do  all  the  fighting  while  the 
Volunteers  was  being  taught  the  difference  be- 
tween a  Krag-Jorgensen  and  a  Moro  Castle.  It 
was  all  front  in  them  days — for  the  Regulars! 
But  we  were  lucky  in  our  commissary  sergeant, 
a  splendid  young  man  named  Orr,  and  we  lived 
well  from  the  start  and  never  came  down  to 
rations.  The  battery  got  quite  a  name  for  hav- 
ing griddle-cakes  for  breakfast  and  carrying  a 
[252] 


THE     MASCOT    OF     BATTERY     B 

lot  of  dog  generally  in  the  eating  line,  and  some- 
one wrote  a  song,  to  the  toon  of  Chickamauga, 
called  "The  Fried  Chicken  of  Battery  B." 
But  I  tell  you,  it  wasn't  all  fried  chicken  either, 
for  the  fighting  was  heavy  and  hot,  and  a  good 
many  of  the  boys  pegged  out.  If  ever  there  was 
a  battery  that  looked  for  trouble  and  got  it — 
it  was  Battery  B !  But  we  took  good  care  of 
our  commissary  sergeant — did  I  mention  he 
was  a  splendid  young  man  named  Orr? — and 
though  we  dropped  a  good  many  numbers, 
wounded,  dead,  sick,  and  missing — we  kep*  up 
the  good  name  of  the  battery  and  had  canned 
butter  and  pop-overs  nearly  every  day. 

Benny  and  I  were  chums,  but  nobody  knows 
what  that  word  means  till  you've  kept  warm 
under  the  same  blanket  and  kneeled  side  by  side 
in  the  firing-line.  It  brings  men  together  like 
nothing  else  in  the  world,  and  it's  queer  the 
unlikely  sorts  that  take  to  one  another.  I  was 
so  common  and  uneddicated  that  I  wonder  what 

[253] 


L  O  V  E     THE     FIDDLER 

Benny  ever  saw  to  like  in  me,  for,  as  I  said,  he 
was  a  regular  Mommer's  boy  and  splendidly 
brought  up  and  an  electrician.  Religious,  too, 
and  a  church  member!  But  he  was  powerful 
fond  of  me,  and  never  went  into  action  but  what 
he'd  let  off  a  little  prayer  to  himself  that  I  might 
come  out  all  right  and  go  to  heaven  if  bolo-ed. 
Pity  he  hadn't  taken  as  much  trouble  for  him- 
self, for  one  day  while  we  were  lying  in  a  trench, 
and  firing  for  all  we  were  worth,  I  suddenly  saw 
that  look  in  his  face  that  a  soldier  gets  to  know 
so  well. 

"  Benny,  you're  shot !  "  I  yelled  out,  dropping 
my  Krag  and  all  struck  of  a  heap. 

"  Shot,  nothing!  "  he  answered,  and  then  he 
keeled  over  in  the  dirt  and  his  legs  began  to 
kick. 

He  took  a  powerful  long  time  to  die,  and  there 
was  even  some  talk  of  sending  him  down  to  the 
base  hospital,  the  field  one  being  that  full  and 
constantly  needed  at  our  heels.  But  he  pleaded 

[254] 


THE     MASCOT     OF     BATTERY     B 

with  the  doctors  and  was  allowed  as  a  favour  to 
stay  on  and  die  where  he  was  minded — with  the 
battery.  I  was  with  him  all  I  could,  and  I'll 
never  forget  how  good  that  commissary  ser- 
geant was,  a  splendid  young  man  named  Orr, 
who  always  had  a  little  pot  of  chicken  broth  for 
Benny  and  cornstarch,  and  what  he  fancied  most 
of  all — a  sort  of  thick  dough  cakes  we  called 
sinkers.  As  luck  would  have  it  I  got  into 
trouble  about  this  time — a  little  matter  of  two 
silver  candle-sticks  and  a  Virgin's  crown — and 
Benny  sent  for  Captain  Howard  (it  was  him 
that  commanded  the  battery),  and  weak  as  he 
was,  dying,  he  begged  me  off,  and  the  captain 
swore  awful  to  hide  how  bad  he  felt,  and  struck 
my  name  off  the  sheet  to  please  him.  There 
was  little  enough  to  do  in  this  line,  for  it  was 
plain  as  day  where  Benny  was  bound  for,  and 
he  knew  himself  he  would  never  see  that  little 
home  in  Oakland  again. 

Well,  he  got  worse  and  worse,  and  sometimes 

[255] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

when  I  went  there  he  didn't  know  me,  being  out 
of  his  head  or  kind  of  dopy  with  the  doctor's 
stuff,  the  shadow  being  over  him,  as  Irish  people 
say.  One  night  he  was  that  low  that  I  got 
scared,  and  I  waylaid  the  contract  surgeon  as  he 
came  out. 

"  Doctor,"  I  said,  "  it's  all  up  with  Benny, 
aintit?" 

"  He'll  never  hear  reveille  no  more,"  he  says. 

I  got  my  blanket  and  lay  outside  the  door,  it 
being  against  regulations  for  any  of  us  to  be  in 
the  field-hospital  after  taps.  But  the  orderly 
said  he'd  call  me  if  Benny  was  to  wake  up  before 
the  end,  and  the  doctor  promised  me  I  might  go 
in.  Sure  -enough,  I  was  called  somewheres  along 
of  four  o'clock  and  the  orderly  led  me  inside  the 
tent  to  Benny's  cot.  There  was  no  light  but  a 
candle  in  a  bottle,  and  I  held  it  in  my  hand  and 
bent  over  and  looked  in  Benny's  face.  He  was 
himself  all  right,  and  he  put  his  cold,  sweaty 
hand  in  mine  and  pressed  it. 

[256] 


THE     MASCOT     OF     BATTERY     B 

"  Do  you  know  me,  old  man?  "  I  said.  "  Do 
you  know  me?  " 

"  Good-bye,  Bill,"  he  said,  and  then,  as  I 
leaned  over  him,  his  voice  being  that  low  and 
faint — he  whispered:  "  Billy,  I  guess  you'll  have 
to  rustle  for  another  chum !  " 

Them  was  his  last  words  and  he  said  them 
with  a  kind  of  a  smile,  like  he  was  happy  and 
didn't  give  a  damn  to  live.  Then  the  little  life 
he  had  left  went  out.  The  orderly  looked  at 
his  watch,  and  then  wrote  the  time  on  a  slate 
after  Benny's  regimental  number  and  the  word: 
"  died."  This  was  about  all  the  epitaph  he  got, 
though  we  buried  him  properly  in  the  morning 
and  gave  him  the  usual  send-off.  Then  his 
effects  was  auctioned  off  in  front  of  the  captain's 
tent,  a  nickel  for  this,  ten  cents  for  that — a 
soldier  hasn't  much  at  any  time,  you  know,  and 
on  the  march  less  than  a  little — and  five-sixty 
about  covered  the  lot.  There  was  quite  a  rush 
for  the  picture  of  his  best  girl,  but  I  bought  it  in, 
[257] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

along  with  one  of  his  Ma  and  a  one-pound 
Hotchkiss  shell  and  the  hilt  of  a  Spanish  of- 
ficer's sword ;  and  when  I  had  laid  them  away  in 
my  haversack  and  had  borrowed  a  sheet  of  paper 
and  an  envelope  from  the  commissary  sergeant 
to  write  to  Benny's  mother,  it  came  over  me 
what  a  little  place  a  man  fills  in  the  world 
and  how  things  go  on  much  the  same  without 
him. 

I  was  setting  down  to  write  that  letter  and 
was  about  midway  through,  having  got  to  "  the 
pride  of  the  battery  and  regretted  by  all  who  noo 
him,"  when  I  looked  up,  and  what  in  thunder  do 
you  suppose  I  saw?  The  old  lady  herself,  by 
God !  walking  into  camp  with  an  umberella  and  a 
valise,  and  looking  like  she  always  did — power- 
ful grim  and  commanding.  Someone  must 
have  told  her  the  news  and  which  was  my  tent, 
for  she  walked  straight  up  to  where  I  was  and 
said:  "William,  William!"  like  that.  She 
didn't  cry  or  nothing,  and  anybody  at  a  distance 

[258] 


THE     MASCOT     OF     BATTERY     B 

might  have  thought  she  was  just  talking  to  a 
stranger;  but  there  was  a  whole  funeral  march 
in  the  sound  of  her  voice,  and  you  could  read 
Benny's  death  like  print  in  her  wrinkled  old 
face.  I  took  her  out  to  where  we  had  buried 
him,  and  she  plumped  down  on  her  knees  and 
prayed,  with  the  umberella  and  the  valise  beside 
her,  while  I  held  my  hat  in  one  hand  and  my 
pistol  in  the  other,  ready  for  any  bolo  business 
that  might  come  out  of  the  high  grass. 

Then  we  went  back  to  the  field-hospital  and 
had  a  look  in,  she  explaining  on  the  way  how  she 
had  mortgaged  her  home,  so  as  to  come  and  look 
after  Benny.  I  guess  the  hospital  must  have 
appeared  kind  of  cheerless,  for  lots  of  the 
wounded  were  lying  on  the  bare  ground,  and  it 
was  a  caution  the  way  some  of  them  groaned  and 
groaned.  You  see  Battery  K  had  just  come  in, 
having  had  an  engagement  by  the  way  at  Dagu- 
pan,  and  Wilson's  cavalry,  besides,  had  dumped 
a  sight  of  their  men  on  us. 
[259] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

"  And  it  was  in  a  place  like  this  that  my  boy 
died?  "  said  the  old  lady,  her  mouth  quivering 
and  then  closing  on  the  words  like  a  steel 
trap. 

"  There's  the  very  cot,  Ma'am,"  I  said. 

She  said  something  like  "  Oh,  oh,  oh !  "  under 
her  breath,  and,  taking  out  her  handkerchief, 
wiped  the  face  and  lips  of  the  man  in  the  cot, 
who  was  lying  there  with  his  uniform  still  on 
him.  I  suppose  he  had  got  it  because  he  was  a 
bad  case, — the  cot,  I  mean, — and  certainly  he 
was  far  from  spry. 

"  He's  dead!  "  said  the  old  lady,  shuddering. 
"  He's  dead!" 

"  Orderly,"  I  said,  "  number  fifty-six  is 
dead!" 

The  orderly  bent  over  to  make  sure  and  then 
ran  for  his  slate — the  same  old  slate — and  began 
to  write  down  the  same  old  thing.  I  suppose 
there  was  some  sense  to  that  slate  racket,  for 
with  a  little  spit  one  slate  would  do  for  a 
[260] 


THE  MASCOT  OF  BATTERY  B 
brigade,  but  it  seemed  a  cheap  way  to  die. 
Then,  as  we  stood  there,  another  orderly  came 
gallumphing  in  with  something  steaming  in  a  tin 
can.  The  old  lady  took  it  out  of  his  hand  and 
smelled  it,  supercilious. 

"  What  do  you  call  this?  "  she  said. 

"  It's  chicken  broth,  Ma'am,"  he  said. 
"  That's  what  it  is,  Ma'am." 

"Faugh!"  said  the  old  lady,  "  faugh!" 
and  handed  it  back  to  him,  like  she  was  going  to 
throw  it  away,  but  didn't.  Then  we  watched 
him  dip  it  out  in  tin  cups  and  carry  it  around, 
while  some  other  fellers  came  in  and  carried  out 
the  body  of  the  man  in  the  cot,  a  trooper  by  his 
legs.  We  went  out  with  them,  and,  I  tell  you, 
it  was  good  to  stand  in  the  open  air  again  and 
breathe.  The  old  lady  took  a  little  spell  of  rest 
on  a  packing-case;  then  she  gave  me  her  um- 
berella  and  valise  to  take  back  to  quarters,  and, 
rolling  up  her  sleeves,  made  like  she  was  going 
into  the  hospital  again. 

[261] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

I  didn't  know  what  to  say,  but  I  guess  I 
looked  it. 

"  William,"  she  said,  with  a  glitter  of  her 
gold  specs. 

"  Ma'am,"  said  I. 

"  Those  boys  aren't  getting  proper  con-sid- 
eration,"  she  said.  "  If  it  was  dogs,"  she  said, 
"  they  couldn't  be  treated  worse.  William, 
I'm  going  to  see  what  one  old  woman  can 
do." 

"  You  ought  to  ask  Captain  Howard  first,"  I 
said.  "  You  don't  belong  to  the  Army  Medical 
Corps." 

"  It's  them  that  let  Benny  die,"  she  said,  with 
her  eyes  snapping,  "  and,  as  for  asking,  they'd 
say  '  No,'  for  they  don't  allow  any  women  ex- 
cept at  the  base  hospitals." 

I  knew  this  for  a  fack,  but  I'd  rather  she'd 
find  it  out  from  the  captain  than  from  me.  I 
didn't  want  to  seem  to  make  trouble  for  her.  So, 
while  I  was  wondering  what  to  do  about  it,  she 

[262] 


THE     MASCOT     OF     BATTERY     B 

headed  right  in,  leaving  me  with  the  valise  and 
the  umberella,  and  a  kind  of  qualmy  feeling  that 
the  old  lady  might  strike  a  snag. 

I  didn't  have  no  chance  to  come  back  till  along 
sundown,  but,  my  stars !  even  in  that  time  there 
had  been  a  change.  Benny's  mother  had  been 
getting  in  her  deadly  work,  and  the  orderlies 
were  bursting  mad,  not  that  any  of  them  dared 
say  anything  outright  or  show  it  except  in  their 
faces,  which  were  that  long;  for,  you  see,  the 
contract  surgeon  had  taken  her  side,  and  had 
backed  her  up.  But  they  moved  around  like 
mules  with  their  ears  down,  powerful  un- 
willing, and  yet  scared  to  say  a  word.  The  hos- 
pital had  been  made  a  new  place,  with  another 
tent  up  that  had  been  laid  away  and  forgotten 
(you  wouldn't  think  it  possible,  but  it  was) ,  and 
the  sick  and  wounded  had  been  sorted  over  and 
washed  and  made  comfortable;  and,  where  be- 
fore there  was  no  room  to  turn  around,  you 
could  walk  through  wide  lanes  and  wonder  what 
[263] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 

had  become  of  the  crowd.  She  had  peeked  into 
the  cooking,  too,  and  had  found  out  more  things 
going  wrong  in  five  hours  than  the  contract  sur- 
geon had  in  five  months.  Blest  if  there  wasn't  a 
court-martial  laying  for  every  one  of  the  order- 
lies if  they  said  "  boo !  "  for  the  swine  had  been 
making  away  scandalous  with  butter  and  choco- 
late and  beef-tea  and  canned  table  peaches  and 
sparrow-grass  and  sardines,  and  all  the  like  of 
that,  belly-robbing  the  boys  right  and  left  per- 
fectly awful. 

It  was  a  mighty  good  account  of  the  contract 
surgeon  that  he  took  it  all  so  well,  and  was  will- 
ing to  admit  how  badly  he  had  been  done.  But 
he  was  a  splendid  young  fellow,  named  Marcus, 
and  what  the  old  lady  said,  went !  He  was  right 
sorry  he  couldn't  put  her  on  the  strength  of  the 
battery,  but  the  regulations  kept  women  nurses 
at  the  base-hospitals,  and  anyway  ( for  we  broke 
everything  them  days,  and  there  wasn't  enough 
red-tape  left  to  play  cat-and-my-cradle  with) 
[264] 


THE     MASCOT    OF     BATTERY     B 

Captain  Howard  hated  the  sight  of  a  petticoat, 
and  was  dead  set  against  women  anywheres.  I 
don't  know  what  they  had  ever  done  to  him,  but 
I'm  just  saying  it  for  a  fack.  But,  however  it 
was,  Marcus  said  the  old  lady  had  to  be  kept 
out  of  sight,  or  else  the  captain  would  surely  send 
her  to  the  rear  under  arrest. 

Now,  this  made  it  a  pretty  hard  game  for  the 
old  lady  to  play,  and  you  can  reckon  how  much 
dodging  she  had  to  do  to  keep  out  of  the  cap- 
tain's sight.  It  was  hard  about  her  sleeping, 
too,  for  she  had  to  do  that  where  she  could,  not 
to  speak  of  the  pay  she  might  have  drawn  and 
didn't,  and  which,  sakes  alive !  she  earned  twenty 
times  over.  By  and  by  everybody  got  onto  it 
except  the  captain,  but  there  wasn't  such  a  skunk 
in  the  battery  as  to  tell  him,  partly  because  of  the 
joke,  but,  most  of  all,  on  account  of  the  con- 
valescents, who  naturally  thought  a  heap  of  her. 
Then  it  got  whispered  around  that  she  was  our 
mascot,  and  carried  the  luck  of  the  battery;  and 

[265] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

it  was  certainly  remarkable  how  it  began  to 
change,  getting  fresh  beef  quite  regular  and 
maple  syrup  to  burn,  and  nine  kegs  of  Navy 
pickles  by  mistake. 

You  would  have  thought  she  was  too  old  to 
stand  it,  for  we  was  always  on  the  move,  and  I 
have  seen  her  sleeping  on  what  was  nothing  else 
but  mud,  with  the  rain  coming  down  tremenjous. 
But  she  was  a  tough  old  customer,  and  always 
came  to  time,  outlasting  men  that  could  have 
tossed  her  in  the  air,  or  run  with  her  a  block 
and  never  taken  breath.  But,  of  course,  it 
couldn't  be  kept  up  for  ever — I  mean  about  the 
captain — and,  sure  enough,  one  day  he  caught 
her  riding  on  a  gun-carriage,  while  he  was  pass- 
ing along  the  line  on  a  Filipino  pony. 

"  Good  God !  "  he  said,  like  that,  reining  in 
his  horse  and  looking  at  her  campaign  hat  and 
the  old  gingham  dress  she  wore.  I  wonder  she 
didn't  correct  him  for  his  profanity,  but  I  allow 
for  once  she  was  scared  stiff,  and  hadn't  no  an- 

[266] 


THE     MASCOT    OF     BATTERY     B 

swer  ready.  My !  But  she  kind  of  shrunk  in 
and  looked  a  million  years  old. 

"  Madam,"  said  he,  "  do  you  belong  to  this 
column  ?  " 

"  Unofficially,  I  do,"  she  said,  perking  up  a 
little. 

"Might  I  inquire  where  you  came  from?" 
said  he,  doing  the  ironical  perlite. 

"  Oakland,  California,"  said  she. 

"  And  is  this  your  usual  mode  of  locomo- 
tion? "  said  he.  "  Riding  on  a  gun?  "  said  he. 
"  Like  the  Goddess  of  War,"  said  he.  "  Perch- 
ing on  the  belcherous  cannon's  back,"  said 
he. 

The  old  lady,  now  as  bold  as  brass,  allowed 
that  it  was. 

"  Scandalous !  "  roared  the  captain.  n  Scan- 
dalous!" 

The  old  lady  always  had  a  kind  of  nattified 
air,  and  even  on  a  gun-carriage  she  sported  that 
look  of  dropping  in  on  the  neighbours  for  a  visit. 

[267] 


LOVE    THE     FIDDLER 
She  ran  up  her  little  parasol,  settled  her  feet, 
give  a  tilt  to  her  specs,  and  looked  the  captain  in 
the  eye. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  I  do  belong  to  this  column, 
and  I  guess  it  would  be  a  smaller  column  by  a 
dozen,  if  it  hadn't  been  for  me  in  your  field-hos- 
pital. Or  twenty,"  said  she.  "  Or  maybe 
more,"  said  she. 

This  kind  of  staggered  the  captain.  It  was 
plain  he  didn't  know  just  what  to  do.  We  were 
hundreds  of  miles  from  anywheres,  and  there 
were  Aguinaldoes  all  around  us.  He  was  as 
good  as  married  to  that  old  lady,  for  any  means 
he  had  of  getting  rid  of  her.  He  began  to  look 
quite  old  himself,  as  he  stared  and  stared  at  the 
mascot  of  Battery  B,  the  cannon  lumping  along, 
and  the  old  lady  bouncing  up  and  down,  as  the 
wheels  sank  to  the  axles  in  the  rutty  road. 

"  When  we  strike  the  railroad,  home  you  go," 
said  he. 

"  We'll  see  about  that,"  said  the  old  lady. 
[  268  ]     - 


THE    MASCOT    OF    BATTERY     B 

"  It's  disgraceful,"  said  he.  "  Pigging  with 
a  whole  battery,"  said  he.  "  Oh,  the  shame  of 
it!  "said  he. 

"  Shoulder-straps  don't  always  make  a  gen- 
tleman," said  she. 

"  Holy  Smoke !  "  said  he,  galloping  off  very 
fierce  and  grand  on  his  little  horse,  to  haul  Dr. 
Marcus  over  the  coals.  They  say  the  contract 
surgeon  got  it  in  the  neck,  but  we  were  short- 
handed  in  that  department  already,  Dr.  Fenelly 
having  been  killed  in  action,  so  the  captain  could 
do  nothing  worse  nor  reprimand  him.  It  was 
bad  enough  as  it  was — for  Marcus — for  he 
wasn't  no  old  lady,  and  the  captain  could  let 
himself  rip.  And,  I  tell  you,  it  was  a  caution 
any  time  to  be  up  against  Captain  Howard,  for, 
though  he  could  be  nice  as  pie  and  perlite  to  beat 
the  band,  it  only  needed  the  occasion  for  him 
to  unloose  on  you  like  a  thirteen-inch  gun. 

Well,  it  was  perfectly  lovely  what  hap- 
pened next,  for,  with  all  her  sassiness,  the  old 

[269] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

lady  felt  pretty  blue,  and  talked  about  Benny  for 
hours,  like  she  always  did  when  she  was  down- 
hearted; and,  by  this  time,  you  know,  she  had 
got  to  love  Battery  B,  and  every  boy  in  it;  and 
it  naturally  went  against  her  to  think  of  starting 
out  all  over  again  with  strangers,  and  them  may- 
be Volunteers.  So  you  can  guess  what  her  feel- 
ings was  that  night  when  the  captain  went  down 
with  fever.  It  was  like  getting  money  from 
home! 

The  captain  had  never  been  sick  in  his  life, 
and  he  took  it  hard  to  be  laid  by  and  keep  off 
the  flies,  while  another  feller  ran  the  battery  and 
jumped  his  place.  I  guess  it  came  over  him 
that  he  wasn't  the  main  guy  after  all,  and  that 
it  wouldn't  matter  a  hill  of  beans  whether  he 
lived  or  quit.  Them's  one  of  the  things  you 
learn  in  hospital,  and  the  most  are  the  better  for 
it;  but  the  captain,  you  see,  was  getting  his  les- 
son a  bit  late.  So  he  was  layed  off,  with  amigos 
to  carry  him  or  bolo  him  (like  what  amigos  are 
[270] 


THE  MASCOT  OF  BATTERY  B 
when  they  get  a  chance),  and  the  old  lady  give 
a  whoop  and  took  him  in  charge.  My!  If  she 
wasn't  good  to  that  man,  and,  as  for  coals  of  fire, 
she  regularly  slung  them  at  him !  The  doctor, 
too,  got  his  little  axe  in,  and  was  everlastingly 
praising  the  old  lady,  and  telling  the  captain  he 
would  have  been  a  goner,  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
her!  And,  when  the  captain  grew  better — 
which  he  did  after  a  few  days — he  was  that 
meek  he'd  eat  out  of  your  hand.  The  old  lady 
was  not  only  a  champion  nurse,  but  she  was  a  bus- 
ter to  cook.  Give  her  a  ham-bone  and  a  box  of 
matches  and  she  could  turn  out  a  French  dinner 
of  five  courses,  with  oofs-sur-le-plate,  and  veal- 
cutlets  in  paper  pants !  It  was  then,  I  reckon, 
she  settled  the  captain  for  good;  and,  when  he 
picked  up  and  was  able  to  walk  about  camp,  lean- 
ing pretty  heavy  on  her  arm,  she  called  him 
"George"  and  "My  boy  "—like  that— and 
you  might  have  taken  him  for  Benny  and  she  his 
Ma. 

[271] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

There  was  nothing  too  good  for  the  old  lady 
after  that,  and  the  captain  wouldn't  hear  of  her 
living  anywheres  but  at  the  officers'  mess,  where 
she  sat  at  his  right  hand,  and  always  spoke  first. 
The  Queen  of  England  couldn't  have  been 
treated  with  more  respeck,  and  the  captain  put 
her  on  the  strength  of  the  battery,  and  she  drew 
back-pay  from  the  day  she  first  blew  into  camp. 
My,  but  it  was  changed  times!  and  you 
ought  to  have  seen  the  way  the  old  lady 
cocked  her  head  in  the  air  and  made  a 
splendid  black  silk  dress  of  loot,  which  she 
wore  every  evening  with  the  officers  and 
rattled  all  over  with  jet.  But  it  didn't  turn 
her  head  the  least  bit,  like  for  a  time  the  boys 
feared  it  might,  and  she  was  twice  as  good  to 
us  as  she  had  been  before.  We  had  a  pull  at 
headquarters  now,  and  she  had  a  heart  that  big 
that  it  could  hold  the  officers  and  us,  too — and 
more  in  the  draw. 

The  tide  had  turned  her  way  when  she  needed 
[272] 


THE     MASCOT    OF     BATTERY     B 

it  most,  for,  tough  as  she  was,  she  could  not  have 
long  gone  on  like  she  had  been.  She  had  worn 
down  very  thin,  and  was  like  a  shadow  of  the 
old  lady  I  remembered  in  Oakland,  California, 
and  kind  of  sunk  in  around  the  eyes,  and  I  don't 
believe  Benny  would  have  known  her,  had  he 
risen  from  the  grave;  and,  when  anybody  joked 
with  her  about  it,  and  said:  "Take  it  easy, 
Ma'am,  you  owe  it  to  the  battery  to  be  keerful," 
she'd  answer  she  had  enlisted  for  the  term  of  the 
war,  and  looked  to  peg  out  the  day  peace  was 
proclaimed. 

"  Then  I'll  be  off  to  join  Benny,"  she'd  say, 
"  and  the  rest  of  the  battery,  in  heaven !  " 

There  was  getting  to  be  a  good  deal  of  a 
crowd  up  there — that  is,  if  the  other  place  hadn't 
yanked  them  in — and  some  of  the  boys  found  a 
lot  of  comfort  in  her  way  of  thinking. 

"  A  boy  as  dies  for  his  country  isn't  going  to 
be  bothered  about  passing  in,"  she  would  say, 
with  a  click  of  her  teeth  and  that  sure  way  of 

[273] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

hers  like  she  knew.  And  I  reckon  perhaps  she 
did. 

One  afternoon  she  was  suddenly  taken  very 
bad;  and,  instead  of  better,  she  grew  worse  and 
worse,  being  tied  to  the  bed  and  raving ;  and  the 
captain,  who  wouldn't  hear  of  her  being  sent  to 
hospital,  give  up  his  own  quarters  to  her  and  al- 
most went  crazy,  he  was  that  frightened  she  was 
dying. 

%<  It's  just  grit  that's  kep'  her  alive,"  I  heard 
the  doctor  saying  to  him. 

'  You  must  save  her,  Marcus,"  said  the  cap- 
tain, holding  to  him,  like  he  was  pleading  with 
the  doctor  for  her  life.  "  You  must  save  her, 
Marcus.  You  must  do  everything  in  the  world 
you  can,  Marcus." 

The  contract  surgeon  looked  mighty  glum. 
"  She's  like  a  ship  that's  been  burning  up  her 
fittings  for  lack  of  coal,"  said  he.  "  There 
aint  nothing  left,"  he  said.  "  Not  a  damn 
thing,"  said  he,  and  then  he  piled  in  a  lot 
[274] 


THE     MASCOT    OF     BATTERY     B 

of  medical  words   that   seemed   to   settle   the 
matter. 

As  for  the  captain,  he  sat  down  and  regularly 
cried.  I'm  sorry  now  I  said  anything  against  the 
captain,  for  he  was  a  splendid  man,  and  the  pride 
of  the  battery.  And,  I  tell  you,  he  wasn't  the 
only  one  that  cried  neither,  for  the  boys  idolised 
the  old  lady,  and  there  wasn't  no  singing  that 
night  or  cards  or  anything.  I  was  on  picket, 
and  it  was  a  heavy  heart  I  took  with  me  into  the 
dark;  and,  when  they  left  me  laying  in  the  grass, 
and  nobody  nearer  nor  a  hundred  yards  and  that 
behind  me,  I  felt  mortal  blue  and  lonesome  and 
homesick,  and  like  I  didn't  care  whether  I  was 
killed  or  not.  It  was  midnight  when  I  went  out, 
— mind,  I  say  midnight — and  I  -don't  know 
what  ailed  me  that  night,  for,  after  think- 
ing of  the  old  lady  and  Benny  and  my 
own  mother  that  was  dead,  and  all  the  rest 
of  the  boys  that  had  marched  out  so  fine  and 
ended  so  miserable — I  couldn't  keep  the  sleep 
[275] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

away;  and  I'd  go  off  and  off,  though  I  tried  my 
damnedest  not  to;  and  my  eyes  would  shut  in 
spite  of  me  and  just  glue  together;  and  I  would 
kind  of  drown,  drown,  drown  in  sleep.  If  ever 
a  man  knew  what  he  was  doing,  and  the  risk, 
and  what  I  owed  to  the  boys,  and  me  a  Regular, 

and  all  that — it  was  me;  yet — yet And 

you  must  remember  it  had  been  a  hard  day,  and 
the  guns  had  stuck  again  and  again  in  the  mud, 
and  it  was  pull,  mule,  pull,  soldier,  till  you 
thought  you'd  drop  in  your  tracks.  Oh,  I  am 
not  excusing  myself!  I've  seen  men  shot  for 
sleeping  on  guard,  and  I  know  it's  right;  and, 
even  in  my  dreams,  I  seemed  to  be  reproaching 
myself  and  calling  myself  a  stinker. 

Then,  just  as  I  was  no  better  nor  a  log,  laying 
there  with  my  head  on  my  arm,  a  coward  and  a 
traitor,  and  a  black  disgrace  to  the  uniform  I 
wore,  I  suddenly  waked  up  with  somebody  shak- 
ing me  hard,  real  rough,  like  that — and  I 
jumped  perfectly  terrible  to  think  it  might  be 

[276] 


THE     MASCOT    OF    BATTERY    B 
the  captain  on  his  rounds.    Oh,  the  relief  when  I 
saw  it  was  nothing  else  than  the  old  lady,  she 
kneeling  beside  me  all  alone,  and  her  specs  shin- 
ing in  the  starlight. 

"  William,  William !  "  she  said,  sorrowful 
and  warning,  her  voice  kind  of  strange,  like  she 
didn't  want  to  say  out  loud  that  I  had  been 
asleep  at  my  post;  and,  as  she  drew  away  her 
hand,  it  touched  mine,  and  it  was  ice-cold.  And, 
just  as  I  was  going  to  tell  her  to  lope  back  and 
be  keerful  of  herself,  the  grass  rustled  in  front 
of  me,  and  I  saw,  rising  like  a  wall,  rows  on  rows 
of  Filipino  heads!  My,  but  didn't  I  shoot  and 
didn't  I  run,  and  the  bugles  rang  out  and  the 
whole  line  was  rushed,  me  pelting  in  and  the 
column  spitting  fire  along  a  length  of  three 
miles!  We  stood  them  off  all  right,  and  my 
name  was  mentioned  in  orders,  and  I  was  pro- 
moted sergeant,  the  brigadier  shaking  my  hand 
and  telling  the  boys  I  was  a  pattern  to  go  by 
and  everything  a  Regular  ought  to  be.  But  it 

[277] 


LOVE     THE     FIDDLER 

wasn't  that  I  was  going  to  tell.  It  was  about  the 
old  lady,  though  I  didn't  learn  it  till  the  next 
day. 

She  had  died  at  a  quarter  of  midnight,  and 
had  lain  all  night  on  the  captain's  bed  with  a 
towel  over  her  poor  old  face. 

Now,  what  do  you  make  of  that? 


THE   END 


[278] 


<£elett  Burgess  an* 
~    3frtoin 


Authors  of  ••  The  Picaroons  " 

THE  REIGN  OF  QUEEN  ISYL 


IN  "The  Reign  of  Queen  Isyl"  the  authors 
have  hit  upon  a  new  scheme  in  fiction.  The  book 
is  both  a  novel  and  a  collection  of  short  stories. 
The  main  story  deals  with  a  carnival  of  flowers 
in  a  California  city.  Just  before  the  coronation 
the  Queen  of  the  Fiesta  disappears,  and  her 
Maid  of  Honor  is  crowned  in  her  stead  —  Queen 
Isyl.  There  are  plots  and  counterplots  —  half- 
mockery,  half-earnest  —  beneath  which  the  reader 
is  tantalized  by  glimpses  of  the  genuine  mystery 
surrounding  the  real  queen's  disappearance. 

Thus  far  the  story  differs  from  other  novels 
only  in  the  quaintly  romantic  atmosphere  of  mod- 
ern chivalry.  Its  distinctive  feature  lies  in  the 
fact  that  in  every  chapter  one  of  the  characters 
relates  an  anecdote.  Each  anecdote  is  a  short 
story  of  the  liveliest  and  most  amusing  kind  — 
complete  in  itself  —  yet  each  bears  a  vital  relation 
to  the  main  romance  and  its  characters.  The 
short  stories  are  as  unusual  and  striking  as  the 
novel  of  which  they  form  a  part. 

$1.50 


Co, 


Batitti  <§rajjam 


Author  of  "Golden  Fleece." 

THE  MASTER  ROGUE 


A.  STUDY  in  the  tyranny  of  wealth.  James 
Galloway  founds  his  fortune  on  a  fraud.  He 
ruins  the  man  who  has  befriended  him  and  steals 
away  his  business.  Vast  railroad  operations  next 
claim  his  attention.  He  becomes  a  bird  of  prey 
in  the  financial  world.  One  by  one  he  forsakes 
his  principles;  he  becomes  a  hypocrite,  posing, 
even  to  himself.  With  the  degeneration  of  his 
moral  character  come  domestic  troubles.  His 
wife  grows  to  despise  him.  One  of  his  sons  be- 
comes a  spendthrift ;  the  other  a  forger.  His 
daughter,  Helen,  alone  retains  any  affection  for 
him.  His  attempts  to  force  his  family  into  the 
most  exclusive  circles  subject  him  and  them  to 
mortifying  rebuffs,  for  all  his  millions  cannot  over- 
come the  ill-repute  of  his  name.  At  last,  with  his 
hundred  millions  won,  his  house  the  finest  in 
America,  his  name  a  name  to  conjure  with  in  the 
financial  world,  he  realizes  that  the  goal  he  has 
reached  was  not  worth  the  race.  Still  he  clings 
to  his  old  ways,  and  dies  in  a  fit  of  anger,  haggling 
over  his  daughter's  dowry.  $1.50. 


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